Claudio Carvalho The Oxford professor of philosophy Stephen (Dirk Bogarde) has two favorite pupils, the athletic aristocrat William (Michael York) and the Austrian Anna von Graz (Jacqueline Sassard). Stephen is a frustrated man, with a negligent wife, Rosalind (Vivien Merchant), who is pregnant of their third child, and is envious of the Oxford professor Charley (Stanley Baker) that has a television show. Stephen feels attracted to Anna, but William woos her and she becomes his girlfriend. Charley has a love affair with Anna but when William dies in a car accident, she leaves Oxford to return to her home town."Accident" is a deceptive and pointless movie directed by Joseph Losey. Dick Bogarde has an astonishing performance in the role of an insecure man, but it is hard to understand why he keeps his close "friendhip" with Charley. There is a sexual tension along the movie but the result is disappointing. My vote is five.Title (Brazil): "Estranho Acidente" ("Strange Accident")

FilmCriticLalitRao Joseph Losey's "Accident" sent shock waves in the west due to its frank portrayal of a frustrated man and his hidden desires when it was released in late 1960s.However,it would appear to be a rather subdued film if one were to judge it from today's liberal standards. For a casual viewer,this film's title is highly misleading as Joseph Losey has shot his film in such a manner that it does not at all appear to be about an accident which has some indirect bearing on the protagonist's life.Accident is true to the spirit of 1960s,a time when everything mattered to everybody especially one's emotional as well as material well being.The credit for this film's honest portrayal of academic milieu can be attributed to director Joseph Losey and screen writer Harold Pinter who have truthfully described what really happens in institutions of higher learning. Lastly,British actor Dirk Bogarde is one major reason to watch "Accident" as he does perfect justice to his role of a man who is unhappy at all times.

Slime-3 Complex and slow moving, this highly rated film now seems very much of-it's-time although it was considered rather avant gard on release. The story, mostly told in flashback, moves with the speed of a work by Antonioni, exploring similar themes of moral decay, disaffection and dissatisfaction among a privileged group (jn this case Oxford academics.) Few of the characters are sympathetic and human weakness is laid bare on all fronts. At the heart of everything is Dirk Bogarde's Oxford Don, a dour man in the throws of a mid-life crisis. Seemingly wearying of his pregnant wife and jealous of his boorish colleague (Stanley Baker), the whole balance of a previously comfortable life is finally thrown right off balance by the arrival into his social circle of a young Italian woman, the exotic new girlfriend of an aristocratic student (Michael York). Jacqueline Sassard, as the object of the far reaching sexual obsession is a curious mix of beguiling beauty(those amazing eyes!) and very little personality while York is boyishly vacuous and we know his ultimate fate in the opening scene. Baker's character is perhaps the most unpleasant. He brags about his success as a resident expert on TV panel-shows and flaunts his sexual conquests and sporting prowess to an increasingly frustrated Bogarde who then goes in search of an old flame while attempting to secure a TV position of his own in order to keep pace on all fronts. Predictably the three male leads Bogarde, York and Baker) are instantly under Sassard's spell and jealousies which have so far largely rumbled along for many years, flare up, if rather slowly, and with a great many heavy silences and moments of extended tension. Screenwriter Harold Pinter's theatrical background does tend to show through in such sequences. One can easily envisage many of the scenes playing out on stage And while the acting is first rate there is sometimes an irritating element of theatricality about the whole thing. One long single-take involving the making of an omelet, which is clearly terribly significant, is a perfect example of how it often resembles a filmed- play. Beautifully filmed, it must be said, and directed with a firm hand at a very deliberate pace. But it does seem somewhat self-regarding and dated now. It's undoubtedly thought provoking, but exists in a world far removed from anything most of us will recognise and as such can be hard to relate to and a little tiresome to stay with. In the end the characters don't engender enough sympathy for us to care what transpires.

emuir-1 Watching this film again in 2010, it is amusing to see how much they smoked and drank. Students would arrive for tutorials and the professor would pour out a generous glass of the hard stuff or at least sherry. Stephen's pregnant wife takes an afternoon nap with a bottle of beer on the bedside table. Charley arrives for lunch carrying a couple of bottles of liquor, which gets consumed in the afternoon. Not surprisingly William ends up passing out face down in the salad! Anyone playing the drinking game and trying to keep up with the characters would be out cold halfway through the film.Everything about the film was note perfect, with the exception of Jacqueline Sassard's stiff performance. Her character was supposed to be Austrian, so why did she try to look like an Italian starlet with that dreadful eye makeup. Perhaps they could not afford Gina Lollobridgida! Not only did she not look the part, but her voice was flat and harsh. I spent the movie wondering what on earth any of the men saw in her. If only they had used Marianne Faithful, who would have looked like an Austrian and given off an air of unattainability, at least until her affair with Charley was discovered.I could not help feeling that if Anna had been written out altogether and the object of desire had been the beautiful William, played to perfection by Michael York, it might have been more interesting. Perhaps there was an subtle undercurrent which I missed. Filmmakers were not quite so obvious in 1966. Other than that, the wonderfully atmospheric film beautifully conveyed the long hot humid summer days of the south of England and the polite banter of the elite academics disguising an envious loathing of each other as they drank their way through the day.40 years on I have never forgotten one little quote in the film by the provost who, upon hearing that a study into the sex habits of students at the University of Wisconsin revealed that 0.01% had intercourse during a lecture on Aristotle, remarked that he was surprised to find Aristotle on the syllabus in Wisconsin. With snappy one liners like that, how can you forget this film.