The Romantic Englishwoman () is a 1975 crime drama film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Michael Caine, Glenda Jackson, Helmut Berger, Michael Lonsdale, and Kate Nelligan in her feature-length screen debut. The screenplay was written by Tom Stoppard and Thomas Wiseman, based on the latter's 1971 novel.
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.
A British and French co-production, the film was shown at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival, but not entered into the main competition. It received generally positive reviews from critics.
Plot Elizabeth, bored wife of successful English pulp writer Lewis Fielding, leaves husband and child and runs away to the German spa town of Baden-Baden. There she meets a man named 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
Production
The film was shot in London, Baden-Baden, and on the Côte d'Azur. Production costs were estimated at US$1.2 million.Box office / business for The Romantic Englishwoman, accessed September 9, 2008. Finance came partly from Rank.
Losey again collaborated with cinematographer Gerry Fisher, with whom he had shot a total of seven films. Reginald Beck had been involved as editor on all of Losey's films since 1966. For Richard Hartley, this was the first film for which he wrote the score.
Losey regular Dirk Bogarde declined the role of Lewis.
Helmut Berger wore suits from Yves Saint-Laurent.
Release The film premiered out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival on 19 May 1975The Romantic Englishwomen, Cannes Film Festival, Out of Competition and was released in France on 11 June of the same year. Its TV premiere in West Germany was on 14 November 1976.
In the United States, the film was distributed by Roger Corman's New World Pictures.
Home media The Romantic Englishwoman was released on DVD and Blu-ray in North America by Kino Lorber on June 21, 2011.
In 2021, the Pidax label released a DVD in German and English as part of its Film Classics series. "The Cocaine Trap" was chosen as the alternative title.
Reception On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 80% based on 5 reviews, with an average rating of 6/10. AllMovie gave the film 3.5 stars out of 5.
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