The Romantic Englishwoman

The Romantic Englishwoman is a 1975 British film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Michael Caine, Glenda Jackson, Helmut Berger. It marks the feature-length screen debut for Kate Nelligan. The screenplay was written by Tom Stoppard and Thomas Wiseman, based on the novel by the same title by Thomas Wiseman.

The Romantic Englishwoman
original film poster
Directed byJoseph Losey
Written byTom Stoppard
Thomas Wiseman
Produced byDaniel M. Angel
StarringMichael Caine
Glenda Jackson
Helmut Berger
CinematographyGerry Fisher
Edited byReginald Beck
Music byRichard Hartley
Production
companies
Dial Films
Les Productions Meric-Matalon
Distributed byFox-Rank
Release date
19 May 1975
Running time
115 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£784,476[1]
Box office£844,198[1]

Caine plays a successful English novelist whose discontented wife, played by Jackson, decides to take a holiday to Germany in order to "find herself". There she meets a mysterious young man, played by Berger, in an elevator, which initiates an often bizarre, but extremely mature examination of desire, responsibility and the nature of love.

The film was shown at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival, but not entered into the main competition.[2]

Plot

Elizabeth, bored wife of Lewis, a successful pulp writer in England, leaves husband and child and runs away to the German town of Baden-Baden. There she meets Thomas, who claims to be a poet but whom viewers know to be a petty thief, conman, drug courier, and gigolo. Though the two are briefly attracted to each other, she returns home. He, hunted by gangsters for a drug consignment he has lost, follows her to England. Lewis, highly suspicious of his wife, invites the young man to stay with them and act as his secretary. Initially resenting the presence of the handsome stranger, Elizabeth one night starts an affair and, after being caught together in the conservatory by Lewis, the two run away with no money to the south of France. Lewis follows them, he in turn being followed by the gangsters looking for Thomas. At the end the gangsters reclaim Thomas, presumably for execution, while Lewis reclaims Elizabeth.

Cast

References
  1. Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945-1985. Edinburgh University Press p 357. Income is distributor's receipts, combined domestic and international, as at 31 Dec 1978.
  2. "Festival de Cannes: The Romantic Englishwoman". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 4 May 2009.


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