''The Buttercup Chain'' is a 1970 British

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by

Robert Ellis Miller Robert Ellis Miller (July 18, 1927 – January 27, 2017) was an American film director. Filmography * '' Breaking Point'' (1963) – TV Series * '' Any Wednesday'' (1966) * '' Sweet November'' (1968) * ''The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter'' (196 ...

and starring

Hywel Bennett Hywel Thomas Bennett (8 April 1944 – 24 July 2017) was a Welsh film and television actor. He had a lead role in '' The Family Way'' (1966) and played the titular "thinking man's layabout" James Shelley in the television sitcom '' Shelley'' ( ...

Jane Asher Jane Asher (born 5 April 1946)''The International Who's Who of Women'', 3rd edition, ed. Elizabeth Sleeman, Europa Publications, 2002, p. 29 is an English actress and author. She achieved early fame as a child actress and through her associatio ...

, and

Leigh Taylor-Young Leigh Taylor-Young (born January 25, 1945) is an American former actress who has appeared on stage, screen, podcast, radio, and television. Her best-known films include '' I Love You, Alice B. Toklas'' (1968), '' The Horsemen'' (1971), '' The Gan ...

. The screenplay was by Peter Draper, adapted from the 1967 novel of the same title by Janice Elliott.

Plot

France and Margaret are cousins, born on the same day to twin sisters. They grow up feeling a bond as if brother and sister. When he returns to London from boarding school, France and Margaret make a pact in which each finds a suitable romantic partner for the other. But when they go away to the countryside with Manny and Fred, a strange incestuous impulse seems to exist between the cousins, while Manny also must deal with a pregnancy.

Cast

as France *

as Manny *

as Margaret *

Sven-Bertil Taube Sven-Bertil Gunnar Evert Taube (24 November 1934 – 11 November 2022) was a Swedish singer and actor. Internationally, he was perhaps better known for his acting career. Taube played Henrik Vanger in the film ''The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'' ...

as Fred *

Clive Revill Clive Selsby Revill (18 April 1930 – 11 March 2025) was a New Zealand actor, best known for his performances in musical theatre and the London stage. A veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he also starred in numerous films and television ...

as George *

Roy Dotrice Roy Dotrice (26 May 1923 – 16 October 2017) was a British stage and screen actor. He played the antiquarian John Aubrey in the solo play '' Brief Lives''. He won a Tony Award for his performance in the 2000 Broadway revival of '' A Moon for ...

as Martin Carr-Gibbons *

Michael Elphick Michael John Elphick (19 September 1946 – 7 September 2002) was an English film and television actor. He played the eponymous private investigator in the ITV series '' Boon'' and Harry Slater in BBC's ''EastEnders''. He was nominated fo ...

as the driver * Jonathan Burn as Alberto *

Yutte Stensgaard Yutte Stensgaard (born 14 May 1946) is a Danish actress born in Thisted, Jutland, Denmark, best known for her starring role in Hammer's '' Lust for a Vampire'' (1971). Career Born Jytte Stensgaard, she moved to the United Kingdom to improve her ...

as Ullah * Susan Baker as Kate * Jennifer Baker as Ursula

Production

The film was shot at

Shepperton Studios Shepperton Studios is a film studio located in Shepperton, Surrey, England, with a history dating back to 1931. It is now part of Pinewood Group, the Pinewood Studios Group. During its early existence, the studio was branded as Sound City (not ...

and on location in England, Sweden and Spain. The film's sets were designed by the veteran

art director Art director is a title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, live-action and animated film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supe ...

Wilfred Shingleton Wilfred Shingleton (January 24, 1914 – June, 1983) was an English art director. He enjoyed a distinguished career in the British film industry from his debut in 1937. Some of his early assignments were several George Formby vehicles – hugely ...

. It was entered into the

1970 Cannes Film Festival The 23rd Cannes Film Festival took place from 3 to 18 May 1970. Guatemalan author and Nobel Prize laureate Miguel Ángel Asturias served as jury president for the main competition. The ''Grand Prix du Festival International du Film'', then the ...

Reception

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who was the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in 2000. ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' wrote: "(Director) Miller and his screen writer, Peter Draper, avoided any revealing psychological confrontations in favor of making one of those depressingly modish movies in which the sensations created by things like slick photography, beautiful nudes and intrusive soundtrack music become the substance of the film, instead of its context." ''

The Monthly Film Bulletin The ''Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 until April 1991, when it merged with '' Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those wi ...

'' wrote: "A romantic fable told with a brisk, confident if somewhat over-emphasised elegance. Content to stay at the intriguing and attractively impressionist level of complexities of motive and emotion that can only be briefly glimpsed or guessed at, ''The Buttercup Chain'' even suggests that Robert Ellis Miller has created a spiritual home in some kind of shadow land of

Carson McCullers Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) was an American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Her first novel, ''The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter'' (1940), explores the spiritual isolation of misfits ...

. But the original material does not seem to read that way, and the film suffers from an inexorable sliding apart of style and subject – paradoxically not because it fails to avoid the trite dangers of its romantic fantasy, but because it does not go far enough towards embracing and overcoming them. The various climaxes of Janice Elliott's novel spiral through a succession of landscapes, the cycle of changes both external and within the characters stated so flatly and objectively as to numb any suggestion of cheap romance. But the film simply peters out to its sad-sentimental end in the cold streets of Stockholm."

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Buttercup Chain, The 1970 films 1970 drama films Films directed by Robert Ellis Miller Films scored by Richard Rodney Bennett British drama films Columbia Pictures films Films set in London Films set in Stockholm Films set in Spain Films shot at Shepperton Studios Films based on British novels 1970s English-language films 1970s British films English-language drama films