Brief Encounter- the film

Spring and Port Wine is a nice enough kitchen sink drama to enjoy on a Sunday afternoon

I absolutely adore this film.
I vould watch this all day it's up there with one of a bunch of films i never get tired off.
Your husband has great taste.

I adore it. It’s shot so well. Together with Rachmaninoff I think it’s wonderful! The hand on the shoulder in their last moments speaks volumes. It’s given me goosebumps thinking about it.

What surprises me was the age of the actors when they made it. When watching is as a youngster, I always assumed Laura and Alec were in their mid to late 40s. Watching it the other day as a fifty year old, I can see that Celia Johnson was younger than that, and it's her hair and clothes which age her in the film. She was 37 when she made it. Trevor Howard was....32!!!

He was a raging alcoholic and died of cirrhosis of the liver, sadly.

Well I wish I didn't look it up. Horrific childhood, no good father and sadistic stepmother. I feel so sad for that little boy.

I go back a bit further and loved him in Maverick. I also loved him in a Marlon Brando film, think it was called Sayonara. I haven't seen it in about 50 years. I'm torn now id love to see it again but maybe the reality might be a let down. It was about love between an American and a Japanese woman. Bit frightened it might seem very different through 21st century eyes.

Seen The Great Escape so many times. I suppose I loved him in everything.

I think he had a sad childhood with his mother dying when he was very young and I think a cruel stepmother but maybe that is stepmother prejudice. Must look it up.

Loved him in The Rockford Files! 😃

Sorry, was just meant to be a joke. It made me think of Rachel's traditional British trifle

I think as a pp has said he's quite a bully to her in the film.

He seems quite charming though so maybe it comes over as interested & decisive?

Then he doesn't turn up one time & then doesn't let her end it when she wants so it's all on his terms!

Thinking about actors James Garner was also a favourite. I remember my kids liking him in The Notebook and them being surprised when I said he was a heartthrob back in the day, I showed them a film of him as a young man (can't remember what) and they agreed he was a very handsome young man.

Im not sure about Trevor Howard, there's something dark about him. @FullLondonEye has it with "something if the night" I think I'd have felt nervous if I met him but no idea why. I can also see why he'd seem attractive as a smart man with a powerful force to him.

There was an excellent play on Radio 4 this week with Mark Gatiss doing an excellent job of playing James Mason in later years. Well worth catching. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002jfc7

Ooh James Mason!

So handsome and - like James Stewart - another architecture graduate (Cambridge). He certainly had a distinct aura - inscrutable and sometimes sinister. He’s great in North by North West, and I also love that film for the superbly-cut suits of Cary Grant!

Oh they are all coming out now 😀

How odd! He's my all-time favourite too. Trevor Howard is not unlike him. He usually plays characters whose lips are permanently curled. I think he was probably not one to suffer fools gladly in real life.

Count me in please! 😂

Great film, rewatched it after we went to a steam train event this summer dressed in 1940’s attire. Waltzed on the train platform and had afternoon tea.

The young actor Margaret Barton that played Beryl the girl in the tea room is still alive and is 99.

I think virtually everyone has a non-stop talking, gossiping acquaintance like Dolly Messister in the film though! You're left to wonder what would have happened if Dolly wouldn't have walked in, how different would the "goodbye" have been.

Of course she wishes Dolly was the type of person she could call a friend, someone she could confide in, instead of a non-stop chattering busy body.

Yes I often get the train to Carnforth and it’s a shrine to Brief Encounter with a lovely cafe.

I saw it yesterday too. I haven't seen it for years. I have always loved it though.

I can't remember the first time I saw it, probably by mistake, I probably would have been in my 20's.

Compared to today, the love story is very tame! Apart from kiss, and the emotional aspect, it was relatively innocent in a physical sense. They fall in love after a few meetings.

I can see why even today people like this film now, lives can seem so mundane and boring, being a housewife, married with 2 children, she probably felt trapped. The thrill she must have felt, in her otherwise boring, routine life, dreaming of a fantasy that was unachievable. I think that's why people still like it!

Also when it was made, the War was still going on so a bit of fantasy and escapism would have been good. I think the music played throughout adds to it and makes it more emotional.

Ahhh but my all time favourite is James Mason. Very different. I need a man to have ‘something of the night’ about him 😂.

I do remember finding BE very romantic the first time I saw it, when I was probably in my teens. It’s since discovering the paucity of romance in real life that I think I feel the need to shake Laura and demand she follow her heart.

Of course the sad thing is that if they’d actually done it and run away together they’d probably have discovered pretty quickly that actually they didn’t know each other that well, had nothing in common and the passion would have fizzled out very quickly. Everyone’s hearts would have been broken for nothing.

it’s about real life as opposed to romantic fantasy.

Fred is the solid lump of comfort, to reference another current thread.

I agree about This Happy Breed (Celia Johnson and Stanley Holloway again). Robert Newton is excellent.

And The Third Man must be in anyone's list of best ever films. Like Casablanca and Brief Encounter, the music plays a large part.