Stephen, a married Oxford tutor in his forties, has two students: the rich and likeable William, of whom he is fond, and a beautiful, enigmatic Austrian named Anna, whom he secretly covets. William also fancies Anna and hopes to know her better. While his wife is away having their third child, Stephen looks up an old flame in London and they sleep together. Returning home, he finds that his pushy colleague Charley has been using the house for sex with Anna. She tells Stephen privately that she and William are engaged to be married.
William says that he will come to Stephen's house after a party that night. As he is too drunk to drive, Anna takes the wheel, but she crashes the car outside Stephen's gate. Upon finding the accident and William dead, Stephen pulls the deeply shaken Anna from the wreckage and hides her upstairs while he calls the police. Later, he forces himself on her while she is still in shock, then takes her back to her room at the university. He comes by in the morning to find a bemused Charley, who cannot prevent Anna from packing to return to Austria.
Steven Easton as Baby, Stephen and Rosalind's baby
Reception
Responding to criticism that the film's meaning was difficult to discern, Stanley Baker said: "It's obvious what Accident meant ... It meant what was shown on the screen." Of Joseph Losey's direction, Baker said: "One of Joe's problems is that he tends to wrap things up too much for himself. I think that 75% of the audience didn't realise that Accident was a flashback."[7]
In his review upon the film's release, New York Times critic Bosley Crowther called Accident "a sad little story of a wistful don ... neither strong drama nor stinging satire."[8]
The film performed poorly at the box office. In 1973, Losey said the film was "officially in bankruptcy."[9]
^Edith de Rham, Joseph Losey, André Deutsch, 1991, p. 180.
^ abcCaute, David (1994). Joseph Losey. Oxford University Press. p. 204.
^Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945-1985. Edinburgh University Press, p. 360, gives the figure as £281,555.
Gale, Steven H. (2003) Sharp Cut: Harold Pinter's Screenplays and the Artistic Process, Lexington, Kentucky: The UP of Kentucky, ISBN0-8131-2244-9 (10) ISBN978-0-8131-2244-1 (13)