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Unfortunately for Noel Coward, the filming of three of his 1936 playlets was delayed for sixteen years and the coming of a new era in western civilization. Luckily, "Brief Encounter," based on the1936 playlet "Still Life," made it to the screen several years earlier more or less intact and went down in history as a classic. The three in this omnibus presentation survive only in tattered form. The best is the first – "Red Peppers," about a married song-and-dance team who constantly carp at one another offstage. It's an entertaining look behind the scenes of that bygone British institution, the music hall – second-rate variety thereof - which was already fading when Coward originally penned the piece. There is a sense of reality to it, for this was familiar turf to Coward and he probably encountered many individuals like the ones portrayed here in his youth as a journeyman actor on the English stage. Martita Hunt is a standout as an alcoholic veteran performer whose ego is far greater than her talent. The second segment is a straight-on filmed play of the domestic comedy "Fumed Oak." What was cartoonishly funny onstage is just awkward on screen. It lacks punch entirely. Even the redoubtable Stanley Holloway as the fed-up man of the house surrounded by jabbering suburban females cannot rescue it. The third, "Ways and Means," is an almost total disaster. More than the other two, this one tries to look like a movie but drowns in chatter. Nigel Patrick and Valerie Hobson are charming but they are not enough to make this slender tale of social parasites on the Riviera entertaining. Throughout all three the Coward wit pokes through often enough to hold the interest, but generally speaking this is a disappointing trio of adaptations.
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