Accident movie review & film summary (1968)

Losey establishes the mood by a series of low-key performances and a very quiet camera style. His camera tends to linger on scenes after the characters have left, suggesting that their intrigues run counter to the passive nature of their world. The subtle, controlled performances of the principal actors make this work.

The story involves two Oxford professors, an extrovert separated from his wife (Stanley Baker) and a quiet, repressed married man (Dirk Bogarde) whose wife is pregnant again. Both men are attracted to a young Austrian student (Jacqueline Sassard). She is engaged to Bogarde's student (Michael York). Bogarde would like to approach her, but holds back (as he tells himself) in deference to York. Baker lacks such qualms, seduces the girl, and even takes her to Bogarde's home one evening for a rendezvous.