The Buttercup Chain
DVD cover
Directed by	Robert Ellis Miller
Written by	Peter Draper
Based on	The Buttercup Chain by Janice Elliott
Produced by	Leslie Gilliat Philip Waddilove John Whitney
Starring	Hywel Bennett Leigh Taylor-Young Jane Asher
Cinematography	Douglas Slocombe
Edited by	Thelma Connell
Music by	Richard Rodney Bennett
Production company	Columbia British Productions
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date	24 September 1970 (1970-09-24)
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

The Buttercup Chain is a 1970 British drama film directed by Robert Ellis Miller and starring Hywel Bennett, Jane Asher, and Leigh Taylor-Young. It was entered into the 1970 Cannes Film Festival.^[1] The film is an adaptation of the 1967 novel of the same title by Janice Elliott. It was shot at Shepperton Studios and on location in England, Sweden and Spain. The film's sets were designed by the veteran art director Wilfred Shingleton.

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

• Hywel Bennett as France
• Leigh Taylor-Young as Manny
• Jane Asher as Margaret
• Sven-Bertil Taube as Fred
• Clive Revill as George
• Roy Dotrice as Martin Carr-Gibbons
• Michael Elphick as The Driver
• Jonathan Burn as Alberto
• Yutte Stensgaard as Ullah
• Susan Baker as Kate
• Jennifer Baker as Ursula

Reception

Vincent Canby of The New York Times 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."^[2]