The Buttercup Chain (1970) User Reviews

A boring story with boring people in pretty settings.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 8 October 2023]

After a while, pretty locations, fun retro fashions and a nice musical score get lost in the shuffle in this drama of forbidden romance between cousins who happened to be born on the same day. Hywel Bennett and Jane Asher are close from birth, and when they grow up travel around with his girlfriend (Leigh Taylor Young) and her current boyfriend (Sven-Bertil Taube). Those two seem to be suspicious of the cousins, a slap from Young having her storm out on Bennett when she catches him staring at Asher while they're kissing.

A more permissive code meant that controversial subjects could now be done on screen, and not all of them work. I didn't like any of these characters all that much to notice any real chemistry between the two cousins or any of the others they were involved in. There's a lot to gawk at with exotic hotspots, but after a while, it's all pretty boring. Definitely very dated, and the controversy is all for nothing because of how unexciting it all is.

Two cousins suppress their incestuous love through relationships with two other young people in 1969 Europe.

[hollywoodlegend · 7/10 · 7 April 2008]

Warning. Possible spoilers. The Buttercup Chain's tag line might lead you to believe the film centers around the carefree, intertwined love lives of four lovely young people. However, what actually drives the story is the incestuous would-be relationship between first cousins, played by Hywel Bennett (as France in the film) and Jane Asher (Margaret). The two were born to twin sisters on the same day. Sadly, the boy's mother passes away when he's young, leaving him to be raised as more of a brother alongside his female cousin. Even as youngsters, the two have a deep, tender love for each other. Flash forward to Margaret returning home to London from schooling elsewhere and her "brother" France there to meet her. Although the two are in love with each other, France has a plan to find his "sister" a lover other than himself. France finds one almost immediately in blond Swedish hunk Fred, and then France meets an American girl, Manny, for himself. He then leads the quartet on holiday in the Spanish countryside. Manny falls for France, and Fred for Margaret, yet despite the two new couples pairing off in bed, the siblings' main interest remains each other. France himself likes to manipulate the situation, and he even watches –from a distance—his sister making love with Fred. He seems to live vicariously through Fred rather than abandoning his thoughts about Margaret. Manny complicates things first by introducing the wealthy older man she's already involved with, starting a relationship with Fred herself, and then announcing she's going to have a baby. The story follows their lives together, adventures on the side, and the feelings France and Margaret keep trying to suppress. After a tragedy heightens everyone's emotions, Margaret takes the lead in an attempt to consummate the love between her and her brother.

The four young actors are all beautiful, and England, Spain, Rome, and Sweden provide the background scenery. Shot in 1969, the period fashions are a joy too. The acting is excellent, even if some parts of the story seem a little unbelievable. Much of the time the quartet are swimming, bathing, or making love, so the two female leads are frequently topless. However, it was still the era of natural breasts, so none of the nudity seems gratuitous, just "European." Hywel Bennett is the only one who keeps his clothes on this time (saving it up for "Loot" perhaps!) Did I mention all the smoking? I should because there's a lot of smoking! The film is hard to find just now, but fans of Jane Asher or Hywel Bennett should definitely track it down. It will probably leave you feeling sad, but the actors give strong performances, and it's probably one of the few incest-themed dramas that doesn't feel creepy.

Somewhat less than compelling

[lazarillo · 13 June 2010]

I'm generally a sucker for British swinging 60's movies like "Blow Up", "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush" or "Goodbye Gemini". Even some of the ones that aren't very good have their charms. There's nothing especially "swinging 60's" about this movie though--the kind of "free love", swapping relationship between the four ridiculously attractive characters could really have occurred in about any era (in fact, if it happened in the 90's, when I was this age, or today, it might even have had a bisexual element to it). This movie is light and airy like a lot of late 60's/early 70's film and definitely somewhat removed from reality (i.e. these characters have plenty of money but seemingly no jobs): however, it also eventually turns into a kind of leaden melodrama.

The story involves a pair of male and female cousins (whose mothers were identical twins) played by Hywel Bennet and Jane Asher. They are very much in love with each other, and if they had simply acted on it a lot of tragedy (and no small amount of boredom) would have been averted. But instead they decide to find each other lovers--a blonde Swedish hunk (Sven Bertil Taube) and a ditzy American bimbo (Leigh Taylor-Young). Of course, the two lovers eventually fall for each other as well, and there is also a much older English man, who is in love with Taylor-Young's character, thrown into the mix . A pregnancy and a subsequent tragedy complicate matters.

The problem with this movie is that, while the two lead characters are by far the more interesting and are played by the two better actors (Hywell Bennet was in both "Twisted Nerve" and "Endless Night" with Haley Mills, while Jane Asher, a former girlfriend of Paul McCartney's, was in the excellent British cult film "Deep End"), WAY too much of the story really revolves around Leigh Taylor-Young's character. Taylor-Young was VERY attractive,of course, which might be why no one ever realized she couldn't act worth spit (She was kind of the female equivalent of Ryan O'Neal, who ironically she would later marry). Even if she were a far better actress though, her character is simply too ditzy and shallow to care much about, and her male partner Taube is simply too bland. Taylor-Young does have a nice topless dancing scene after she freaks out at a disco, but it still doesn't begin to redeem her generally wretched performance.

This movie simply gives too much screen time to the less interesting characters and less talented actors and never really develops and utilizes the more interesting and more talented ones. The four leads and the scenery (shot in England, Spain, and Sweden) all look very nice, but the movie overall is somewhat less than compelling.

Ho hum

[unrated · 27 August 2002]

Basically a soap opera about a quartet of spoiled rich kids running all over Europe. They fall in and out of love with each other...stuff like that. Some OK scenes, and it's competently made, but overall it's not very interesting. I saw it recently, but I can't say much more because it's already fading from my mind. A little-known movie that should probably stay that way.