The Romantic Englishwoman ** (1975, Glenda Jackson, Michael Caine, Helmut Berger, Béatrice Romand, Nathalie Delon, Michel Lonsdale, Kate Nelligan) – Classic Movie Review 6,956

Joseph Losey’s acidic 1975 comedy drama film The Romantic Englishwoman stars Glenda Jackson as the Romantic Englishwoman, Elizabeth, who meets enigmatic German stranger Thomas (Helmut Berger) on vacation in Baden Baden, where they have an encounter in a lift.

Director Joseph Losey’s acidic 1975 comedy drama The Romantic Englishwoman stars Glenda Jackson as the Romantic Englishwoman, Elizabeth, who meets enigmatic German stranger Thomas (Helmut Berger) on vacation in Baden Baden, where they have an encounter in a lift.

Later Thomas comes to England, is invited to tea, and then her jealous novelist husband Lewis Fielding (Michael Caine) invites him to stay in order to toy with him and study him for a script.

The Romantic Englishwoman is OK, but with this special talent, ideally suited to the material, it should have been much better. Caine and Jackson milk what wit they can find in the screenplay by Thomas Wiseman and Tom Stoppard, based on the novel by Thomas Wiseman. But back in the Sixties Losey elevated this kind of game-playing to an art form in The Servant and Accident.

Also in the cast are Béatrice Romand, Nathalie Delon, Michel Lonsdale [Michael Lonsdale], Kate Nelligan, Marcus Richardson, René Kolldehoff [Reinhard Kolldehoff], Anna Steele, Bill Wallis, Julie Peasgood, David De Keyser, Marcella Markham and Frances Tomelty.

The Romantic Englishwoman is directed by Joseph Losey, runs 116 minutes, is an Anglo-French co-production by Dial Films, Les Productions Meric-Matalon and Angel Productions, is released by New World, is written by Thomas Wiseman and Tom Stoppard, based on the novel by Thomas Wiseman, is shot in Eastmancolor by Gerry Fisher, is produced by Daniel M Angel and Richard F Dalton (associate producer), and is scored by Richard Hartley, with Production Design by Richard Macdonald.

Rated suitable for 15 years and over.

In old age, Caine and Jackson starred together again in The Great Escaper, a film telling the true story of Bernard Jordan’s escape from his care home to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings in France. Caine plays Jordan and Jackson plays his wife Irene. It is due for release later in 2023.

Helmut Berger died on 18 May 2023, at the age of 78.

Glenda May Jackson CBE (9 May 1936 – 15 June 2023).

Glenda Jackson died at her Blackheath home in London on 15 June 2023, aged 87.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6,956

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