Brief Encounter (1945)

Director:

David Lean

Writers:

(more)

Release Date:

24 August 1946 (USA)

Genre:

Romance | Drama

Tagline:

A story of the most precious moments in woman's life!

Plot:

Meeting a stranger in a railway station, a woman is tempted to cheat on her husband.

Plot Keywords:

Love | Train | Railway | Railway Station | Housewife

Awards:

Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 3 wins

Cast

Celia Johnson	...	Laura Jesson
Trevor Howard	...	Dr. Alec Harvey
Stanley Holloway	...	Albert Godby
Joyce Carey	...	Myrtle Bagot
Cyril Raymond	...	Fred Jesson
Everley Gregg	...	Dolly Messiter
Marjorie Mars	...	Mary Norton
Margaret Barton	...	Beryl Walters, Tea Room Assistant
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Wilfred Babbage	...	Policeman at War Memorial (uncredited)
Alfie Bass	...	Waiter at the Royal (uncredited)
Wallace Bosco	...	Doctor at Bobbie's Accident (uncredited)
Sydney Bromley	...	Johnnie, Second Soldier (uncredited)
Nuna Davey	...	Herminie Rolandson, Mary's Cousin (uncredited)
Valentine Dyall	...	Stephen Lynn, Alec's 'Friend' (uncredited)
Irene Handl	...	Cellist and Organist (uncredited)
Dennis Harkin	...	Stanley, Beryl's Man (uncredited)
Edward Hodge	...	Bill, First Soldier (uncredited)
Jack May	...	Boat Rental Man (uncredited)
Avis Scott	...	Cardova Waitress (uncredited)
George V. Sheldon	...	Clergyman, Train Passenger (uncredited)
Richard Thomas	...	Bobbie Jesson (uncredited)
Henrietta Vincent	...	Margaret Jesson (uncredited)

Directed by
David Lean

Writing credits
Noel Coward		(play "Still Life") uncredited
Anthony Havelock-Allan		uncredited &
David Lean		uncredited &
Ronald Neame		uncredited

Produced by
Noel Coward	....	producer
Anthony Havelock-Allan	....	producer (uncredited)
Ronald Neame	....	producer (uncredited)

Cinematography by
Robert Krasker		(director of photography)

Film Editing by
Jack Harris

Art Direction by
Lawrence P. Williams		(as L.P. Williams)

Production Management
Anthony Havelock-Allan	....	in charge of production
E.J. Holding	....	production manager (as E. Holding)
Ronald Neame	....	in charge of production

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
George Pollock	....	assistant director
Victor Wark	....	second assistant director (uncredited)

Art Department
G.E. Calthrop	....	art supervisor: Noel Coward
William Kellner	....	draughtsman (uncredited)
Elven Webb	....	assistant art director (uncredited)
Herbert Westbrook	....	draughtsman (uncredited)

Sound Department
Desmond Dew	....	sound recordist
Stanley Lambourne	....	sound recordist
Harry Miller	....	sound editor
Peter Davies	....	dubbing sound camera (uncredited)

Special Effects by
George Blackwell	....	special effects (uncredited)

Visual Effects by
Charles Staffell	....	back projection (uncredited)

Camera and Electrical Department
B. Francke	....	camera operator
Jim Body	....	focus puller (uncredited)
Alan Bryce	....	clapper loader (uncredited)
Arthur Ibbetson	....	focus puller (uncredited)
Ronald Neame	....	director of photography: additional photography (uncredited)
E. Owen	....	clapper loader (uncredited)

Editorial Department
Margery Saunders	....	associate editor
John Cooke	....	second assistant editor (uncredited)
Winston Ryder	....	assistant editor (uncredited)

Music Department
John Hollingsworth	....	associate musical director (uncredited)
Percival Mackey	....	composer: additional music (uncredited)
Muir Mathieson	....	composer: additional music (uncredited)

Other crew
Maggie Unsworth	....	continuity (as Margaret Sibley)
Renée Glynne	....	production secretary (uncredited)
T. Tomson	....	location manager (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Cineguild (as A Noel Coward - Cineguild Production)

Distributors

• Eagle-Lion Distributors Limited (1945) (UK) (theatrical) (G. C. F. presents Eagle-Lion Distributors Ltd.)
• Universal Pictures (1946) (USA) (theatrical)
• Associated British Film Distributors (ABFD) (1948) (UK) (theatrical) (re-release)
• Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) (1977) (USA) (TV)
• Paramount Pictures (1988) (USA) (VHS)
• Carlton Visual Entertainment (2001) (UK) (DVD)
• Continental Home Vídeo (2004) (Brazil) (DVD)
• Criterion Collection, The (2004) (2010) (2012) (USA) (DVD)
• MGM Home Entertainment (2004) (USA) (DVD)
• Epix Media (2005) (Germany) (DVD)
• LW Editora (2005) (Brazil) (DVD)
• Park Circus (2006) (UK) (theatrical)
• Filmmuseum Distributie (2008) (Netherlands) (theatrical) (re-release)
• Filmtrade (2010) (Greece) (theatrical) (re-release)
• C-Sales (19??) (Netherlands) (VHS)
• Carlton International Media
• Divisa Home Video (2011) (Spain) (DVD)
• Dutch FilmWorks (DFW) (2006) (Netherlands) (DVD) (Essential Cinema)
• Dutch FilmWorks (DFW) (2011) (Netherlands) (DVD) (Blu-ray) (Prestige Collection)
• Dutch FilmWorks (DFW) (2011) (Netherlands) (DVD) (Prestige Collection)
• F.J. Lucas (Brazil) (VHS)
• Samuel Goldwyn Company, The

Other Companies

• National Symphony Orchestra  music played by (as The National Symphony Orchestra)
• BFI National Archive  a restoration by (as the BFI National Archive)
• David Lean Foundation, The  a restoration funded by (as The David Lean Foundation)
• Granada International  a restoration by

Also Known As:

Runtime:

86 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Argentina:Atp | Spain:13 (DVD rating) | Australia:G | South Korea:15 | Netherlands:AL | UK:A (original rating) | UK:PG (tv rating) | Finland:K-16 | Hong Kong:I | Sweden:15 | UK:PG (video rating) (1986) (1990) (2005) | USA:Approved (PCA #11819, Adult Audience) | Ireland:(Banned)

Filming Locations:

Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Company:

Cineguild

Trivia:

Laura borrows books by Kate O'Brien. Kate O'Brien (1897 - 1974), was an Irish novelist and playwright.

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: (At 13:15) There appears to be a set light perched under the Jesson's tray ceiling in the library. You can see it very briefly as Fred crosses from the mantel to the sofa.

Quotes:

Dr. Alec Harvey:I love you. I love your wide eyes, the way you smile, your shyness, and the way you laugh at my jokes.
Laura Jesson:[whimpers] Please don't.
Dr. Alec Harvey:I love you. I love you. You love me too. It's no use pretending it hasn't happened cause it has.
Laura Jesson:Yes it has. I don't want to pretend anything either to you or to anyone else. But from now on, I shall have to. That's what's wrong. Don't you see? That's what spoils everything. That's why we must stop, here and now, talking like this. We're neither of us free to love each other. There's too much in the way. There's still time, if we control ourselves and behave like sensible human beings. There's still time.
[...]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "The Andy Griffith Show: Aunt Bee's Brief Encounter (#2.9)" (1961)

Soundtrack:

Bolero

"Huge Cloudy Symbols Of A High Romance"

Steam ... cut-glass accents ... Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto ... the refreshment room at Milford Junction ... "the shame of the whole thing - the guiltiness, the fear ..." - it all adds up to David Lean's famous film treatment of the Noel Coward tale of love blossoming and withering at a suburban railway station. Laura Jesson is a complacent middle-class housewife who gets a piece of grit in her eye one day and is helped by Doctor Alec Harvey, and the romance begins.

Coward's screenplay is characteristic of his oeuvre. There is the neat precision of the circular plot, beginning and ending with the brainless intrusion of Dolly Messiter, and the matching sub-plot of the Albert-Mrs. Bagot courtship. There are tongue-in-cheek self-references (on the cinema screen, "Flames Of Passion" coming shortly) and the trademark Cowardian grounding in exaggerated Englishness ("One has one's roots, after all"). Most typical of all is that overwrought cascade of middle-class vocabulary (" ...so utterly humiliated and defeated, and so dreadfully, dreadfully ashamed"). Coward patronises working-class people abominably. Albert and Mrs. Bagot amble effortlessly through their romance because, bless them, they are simple folk. Alec and Laura suffer torments, having so much more sensitivity, and, you see, they have reputations to lose ("the furtiveness and the lying outweigh the happiness").

Having made the transition from editor to director in 1942, Lean was at the helm for the fourth time for "Brief Encounter", all four films being Coward projects - and a highly creditable job he made of this one. The scene in which Alec explains coal-dust inhalation and Laura falls in love is a model of sensitive direction. Reflections of Laura's face in the train window and the make-up mirror suggest in visual terms the existence of her 'other self', the id to her ego. Thundering steam trains and Rachmaninov stand for the irrepressible sexual urge. Stephen Lynn's flat, with its bachelor urbanity, contrasts cleverly with Laura's safe, staid home and safe, staid husband Fred ("I don't understand!") Alec's silent hand on Laura's shoulder is wonderfully poignant, the suppressed emotion eclipsed by stupid Dolly Messiter, her face filling the screen and 'wiping out' the great moment.

Sex has to be dealt with obliquely, but it is very much the driving-force of the film. "If we control ourselves, and behave like sensible human beings ..." offers Laura hopefully but hollowly. Neither man nor woman is capable of restraint, at least until after the climax in Stephen's flat. The boathouse and the little bridge hint furtively at sexual union. Other reviewers have declared the liaison to be 'unrequited' or 'unconsummated', but I am not so sure. In the grammar of 1940's cinema, the return to the love-nest of tousle-haired, hatless Laura is the equivalent, I would suggest, of our modern bedroom scene. Isn't that why Alec suddenly decides to take the job offer?