Brief Encounter (1945)

Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 was nicknamed "Brief Encounter" because of this film

You may find this thread of interest.

Great movie. Also the name of a fab London gay bar back in the day that is no longer there

Is there a place to stream this, or should I just buy it? Totally up my alley.

this film would seem to be the inspiration for Falling in Love an 80s Brief Encounter: trivial and vacuous

R4 HBO Max

R2 That thread is old and did not appear in my search.

Trevor Howard was hot

It's available to buy or stream on Amazon, r4. It's part of the Criterion Collection, if that's your kind of thing.

Love the ending- though totally unrealistic. A great piece of storytelling.

R10 yeah. She was probably his beard anyway

Gorgeous film!

Gee the official trailer doesn't tell us who wrote it. Could it have been Kaufman and Hart, Neil Simon or Bernard Slade?

It was mentioned here that Sophia Loren and Richard Burton did a television remake of this in the seventies…don’t think they did a good job.

Can't watch it without thinking of this Nichols and May sketch.

I prefer Brief Encounters (1992.) Jeff Dillon was so hot

Nowadays, it's despised in the UK. The smug, all-white, middle-class suburban setting, the ridiculous Home Counties "ex-cents", the condescending portrayal of the working class.

No film's reputation has sunk as fast as this one. And Lean's is sinking faster by the year.

I’m in the uk and have heard nothing but praise for this film

Love this movie but Coward's condescension is hard to miss, though it's really no worse than what you see in many other British films of that era.

Howard and Johnson were perfectly matched as actors.

The remake with Burton and Loren is unwatchable - they're both phoning it in. Never seen Falling In Love, and have no real interest in doing so.

It's a bag of bullshit that this film now has a bad reputation in the UK; unless one is counting the erroneous opinion of self hating middle class "leftists" and similarly self hating Black middle, working ans underclass "leftists" who really do not give a fuck about equality for Black people as much as knocking a whitey off their perch so as to take their place in the "supremacist" greasy totem pole. As a Black person, I have witnessed how useless both of these groups have been for any group on whose behalf they claim to advocate, but they are very good at getting their niche opinions brandished as "general", whilst taking that capitalist money.

Fuck 'em. And I say that as somebody who has always balked a little at Trevor Howard's greasy countenance, as great an actor as he was.

I saw the movie twice in one week at FF and found it a heart breaking jewel. I missed the condescension by light years. Also it's hardly a middle class setting. Middle class people would kill for such surroundings.

The OP needs to check the Datalounge Index and Google to stop wasting space with all these duplicate threads.

It's the general theme of a love forever lost and not through death that gets me.

I do, however, like the denouement here, where the husband shows his sympathy (essentially his forgiveness) and thus his knowledge---all along. And we understand then that he is her true, and truest, love; and that she will perhaps come to know it, too.

My reading, anyway.

Hardly, r5. You must have forgotten the ending to "Falling in Love."

Hey retardino at R17, I don't know whether you are trolling or if you are just an idiot, but almost all classic cinematography is all white, except Gone with the wind.

OP Your good taste is showing.

Such a great film and holds up to multiple viewings I'm happy to report.

[quote] Howard and Johnson were perfectly matched as actors.

Also as motel and 24-hour diner.

Excellent film. As far as " the condescending portrayal of the working class" the one time the two principals sneer at another person they think below themselves ( the lady musician ) they almost immediately are shown as foolish to not have recognized her talent.

The toffs get taught a lesson.

There's a new big biography of Coward by Oliver Soden coming out now that I'm looking forward to reading.

"Masquerade: the Lives of Noel Coward."

[quote] "Masquerade: the Lives of Noel Coward."

His blurb seems well-written, sober and well-balanced. And it doesn't claim any new or shocking revelations.

[quote] No film's reputation has sunk as fast as this one. And Lean's is sinking faster by the year.

Ahem…

I love this film. Could make a great double bill with An Affair to Remember

Also lean’s Summertime

Available on YouTube.

R17 Stop talking crap, this piece was from just a few years ago, and it still applies today.

Great film. Beautifully photographed and acted.

[quote] The film follows a married woman, Laura, as she slowly falls in love with a married man

I thought the story occurs over a two or three Thursdays on her weekly visits to that nearby town every Thursday for shopping and a matinée movie.

[quote] Gee the official trailer doesn't tell us who wrote it

R13 That was the official trailer for the re-release.

The ownership and copyright for the film has changed many hands. Most English films are now co-productions with TV companies and French companies Pathe and Canal+.

This first movie of the Encounters trilogy was riveting. But by the third movie they had completely lost the plot.

I always get Trevor mixed up with Peter Finch.

They often played similar roles.

Intellectual and damaged men abused by foolish women.

Peter Finch's career went from bad to good.

Trevor Howard's career went from good to bad.

[Quote] Hardly, [R5]. You must have forgotten the ending to "Falling in Love."

Actually, mostly R24

At heart, 'Falling in Love,' which opens today at the Tower East and other theaters, is an American 'Brief Encounter' that goes on too long. It's about two attractive Westchester commuters, each happily married to someone else, who meet, fall in love and then don't know what to do about it. - NY Times

Rubbish story. She’s bored with a husband of a few years who adores and cherishes her. They have children. He’s not at all charming and witty like the wannabe Leslie Howard creative type she meets in a shabby and cheap cafe where they get to bond for like 30 min. on a weekly (?) basis. Cue up the music as they sip their tea and stare into each other’s eyes.

Like adolescents they “fall in love” with love —and most importantly, lust, pretending it is so much more. Soul mates. Barf. Cue up the music.

She’s actually tempted to ditch the trusting husband and the children for passionate fucks at his place and embark on an affair but no, she nobly resists. Cue up the music. Again. Tragedy! Cruel fate!

The husband ironically is the only one who understands true love as the poster above pointed out. He never chides her, never makes her feel any less than cherished. He knew all the time the bitch was being evasive and emotionally unfaithful to him. If he had been a shit husband, abusing her, etc. it would have made more sense about that infatuation.

Overblown nonsense but yes, it was photographed really well. I enjoyed watching it for that alone. Post-war English movies are a favorite genre of mine.

So you liked it!

[Quote] Always, always to the end of my days.

Beautifully acted, this is one of my favourite sequences from any film.

Listening to Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No 2 and thinking of this film

It IS Brief Encounter!

Celia deserved the Oscar Over Olivia DeHavilland that year for "To Each His Own". I thought Vivien Leigh would have been great in Brief Encounter.

I adore Vivien but she is all wrong for that part, R48. Celia Johnson's Laura seems like a thoroughly decent and rather vulnerable woman-- not a great beauty perhaps but all the more relatable for it.

Vivien with her spectacular looks and smoldering sexuality emanates dangerous/homewrecker vibes and would not be well cast as a middle class housewife. There is something faintly supernatural or otherworldly about Vivien that places her outside conventional society and morality, and I cannot see her struggling convincingly with her conscience as Celia Johnson does so well.

It IS Still Life!