Stephen is a professor at Oxford University who is caught in a rut and feels trapped by his life in both academia and marriage. One of his students, William, is engaged to the beautiful Anna, and Stephen becomes enamored of the younger woman. These three people become linked together by a horrible car crash, with flashbacks providing details into the lives of each person and their connection to the others in this brooding English drama.

Stephen

Charley

Anna

William

Rosalind

Francesca

Provost

Laura

Police Sergeant

Plain Clothed Policeman

Man in Bell's Office

Ted

Bell - TV Producer
Dirk Bogarde is a philosophy professor at Oxford University - happily married with two children; and another on the way. He has a favourite student - Michael York who is keen on a newcomer; the glamorous Austrian Jacqueline Sassard. They have a Sunday lunch with an additional guest in Stanley Baker - a fellow professor who is struggling with his own marriage; as well as his - envy evoking - television career. It's a sort of intellectual menage-à-trois - Bogarde fancies his Austrian student but she has eyes on both York and Baker... Even the consumption of excesses of booze at the lunch/dinner/supper doesn't inject much into this. It lacks any degree of edginess or depth - but merely provides us with a spotlight on the bored, affected, educational middle-classes that doesn't really shine anything beyond highlighting the shallowness of the characters created by Nicholas Mosley - and not really enhanced much by Harold Pinter.. The performances, especially from Baker, are good but there just isn't enough substance to generate a spark!
February 9, 1967

Stephen

Charley

Anna

William

Rosalind

Francesca

Provost

Laura

Police Sergeant

Plain Clothed Policeman

Man in Bell's Office

Ted

Bell - TV Producer
Dirk Bogarde is a philosophy professor at Oxford University - happily married with two children; and another on the way. He has a favourite student - Michael York who is keen on a newcomer; the glamorous Austrian Jacqueline Sassard. They have a Sunday lunch with an additional guest in Stanley Baker - a fellow professor who is struggling with his own marriage; as well as his - envy evoking - television career. It's a sort of intellectual menage-à-trois - Bogarde fancies his Austrian student but she has eyes on both York and Baker... Even the consumption of excesses of booze at the lunch/dinner/supper doesn't inject much into this. It lacks any degree of edginess or depth - but merely provides us with a spotlight on the bored, affected, educational middle-classes that doesn't really shine anything beyond highlighting the shallowness of the characters created by Nicholas Mosley - and not really enhanced much by Harold Pinter.. The performances, especially from Baker, are good but there just isn't enough substance to generate a spark!
