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gift stall - Brief Encounter [1945]
![Brief Encounter [1945]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51WA7MX2N5L._SL160_.jpg)
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List Price: £10.99
Our Price: £5.99
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Manufacturer: ITV DVD
Starring: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Joyce Carey, Cyril Raymond
Directed By: David Lean
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: Parental Guidance
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 5014861306428
Format: Black & White
Label: ITV DVD
Manufacturer: ITV DVD
Number Of Discs: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: ITV DVD
Release Date: 2001-01-29
Running Time: 107
Studio: ITV DVD
Theatrical Release Date: 1946-08-24
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Very much of its time
Comment: A beautiful love story between two married people who encounter a chance meeting at a railway station. What follows is battle of emotions and morals as they struggle to come to terms with their feelings for each other.
In todays society, its very difficult for people to relate to just how frowned upon such an affair would have been back then - such things seem to be common place nowadays. If viewed with this in mind, then Brief Encounter is a truely classic love story, and one of the best British films ever made.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Brief Encounter - A Classic Love Story
Comment: Ceila Johnson (Laura Jesson)and Trevor Howard (Dr Alec Harvey)play two happily married strangers who are thrown together by fate. The film is England in a bygone age ('we were very gay during lunch')innocently referring to having drunk champagne one lunchtime and being very happy. He plays a doctor while she is a housewife who takes a weekly train to shop, see a film and to change her library books. Although she appears happily married, as the film progresses, it is interesting to see the innocent way in which her(and his) feelings grow for one another, whilst always being very polite. After agonising and then deciding to go and spend some time with Alec in his friend's flat one evening and almost almost being caught, Laura decides that they must end their relationship. The film is a lovely story - one that can be viewed time and time again.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Devon Villager's Perspective
Comment: Film Review - Brief Encounter - Littleham Village Hall - Saturday 4th
November 2008 at 1930
Last night was good, there was lots of bonhomie but mixed feelings about the
film amongst a healthy turnout of villagers and visitors. For at least one person, it
was very significant, as she saw it first when it was premiered in London at a time
in her life when, romantically, things were trying. For others, me included, it was
a very interesting reflection of a respected film maker's perspective on life in the
middle classes in the mid 20th century (David Lean - later to make Ryan's
Daughter and Dr Zhivago amongst many others). The choice of Rachmaninoff's beautiful
second piano concerto as the incidental music was a stroke of brilliance and for me it
was the element of the evening that exuded the pinnacle of artistic excellence.
It was also interesting to take a nostalgic peek at the era in which I grew up - it all looked
very familiar.
The women's dresses, with coat hangers in the shoulders. Women, wonderful in
their humble housewifely roles. Afraid to smoke in public and being kept by stiff
upper lipped chaps who called them "old Gel" and gave them a hearty pat on the
back when they were in need of emotional support. Railway station buffet's
redolent of grime and coal ash, you could almost smell the steam and smoke.
Uniformed railway workers, proud of their station (no pun intended) in life and
Medical Doctors who still had time to take tea in the afternoon and go to the
"pictures".
I had forgotten just how fast Noel Coward required his actors to speak,
it was almost difficult to keep up. He always spoke that way didn't he? So I
suppose he passed it on through his writing.
The fundamental message of this film about the temptations of the flesh heavily
disguised as romance was played on by Morris our host. He contrived to stop the
film for tea and ice cream just at the point where everyone with any red blood in
their veins was waiting to see if the heroine would throw caution to the wind and
begin her illicit affair or do the "right" thing and go back to hubby. There was a
great cacophony of hoots and jeers at this point when the action suddenly
stopped. I didn't realise the population of quiet Littleham was so visceral!
After the break, the film resumed with the heroine, now ruled by her carnal lusts,
running off to find her beau. At this point there was an even more calamitous roar
of approval from the normally discrete Littleham folks. Quite what the world is
coming to I do not know. There was even applause! Of course circumstances
conspired to separate the lovers pre-coitus and if that wasn't frustrating enough,
the story then returned to the romantic theme and we were treated to an
emotional roller coaster of a ride as the lover's final moments together were
further interrupted and anything like a reasonable good bye was thwarted.
Finally, the heroine failed in her attempt to commit suicide by throwing herself
under the "boat train" speeding toward Dover as her erstwhile suitor steamed
away to Africa, no doubt bent upon further conquests on board the "SS
something or another". But in those days chaps didn't disclose their innermost
desires and intentions and Trevor Howard, courtesy of David Lean, didn't either -
quite right I say. No so for Celia Johnson, who bared her breast - figuratively
speaking of course, throughout the whole of the movie. Thus providing us all with
an intimate and revealing view of the goings on in the mind of the female of the
species. Revelations that were confused, conflicting, sometimes unclear, always
introverted, generally untidy and often incomplete - but always right. Nothing
changes does it?
Sir Lorn Stakes
Littleham Sunday, October 5, 2008
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very Irritating
Comment: Am I the only person who wants to give that woman a slap? She's got a nice husband, two healthy children and far too much time on her hands. Instead of concentrating on her familiy or doing something else useful she spends the whole film swooning over this man she doesn't actually know at all. Everything he says could be lies, but by the end she's so wound up about him leaving she wants to throw herself in front of a train! Everything about the story irritated me. The two stars are for the fact the film is technically well made.
Customer Rating:
Summary: You get it or you don't . . .
Comment: . . . and I didn't. Yes, I know, it gets all the plaudits, and continually features in favourite film lists, but my wife and I found it exceedingly tedious, and the acting both over-the-top and wooden (if you can combine the two). By OTT, I mean gushing and melodramatic. By wooden, I mean unconvincing and uninspired. We squirmed. The story is slight, but I know that's not the point. But, when it is so slight, you need everything else in place and for me - who has admired Trevor Howard in any things - it just didn't hang together. Sorry to be so frightfully stuffy, and all that, but it's an absolute stinker of a film.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Expanded from a one-act stage play by Noel Coward, Brief Encounter is without doubt one of the true masterpieces of British film history. The story seems slight--a respectable suburban housewife has a chance meeting with a handsome married doctor, their friendship becomes romance, but they feel the pressures of convention pulling their relationship apart--but the writing, acting and direction are sublime, turning what might have been just another melodrama into a memorable and heartbreaking story of impossible love. David Lean went on to make much bigger films than this, but few of those epics packed the emotional punch of this picture, set in a mundane world of railway stations, semi-detached houses and inexpensive cafes. Trevor Howard is perfectly cast as Alec, the doctor, but the film belongs above all to Celia Johnson, as the heroine Laura. It's easy to mock her clipped ultra-English accent, but she gives one of the greatest screen performances imaginable, brilliantly evoking how an ordinary life can be turned upside down by unexpected passion. Throw in the superb use of Rachmaninov's swooning Second Piano Concerto, shrewd supporting acting from Cyril Raymond, Joyce Carey and Everley Gregg, and some of the best black-and-white photography of its era, and the result is irresistible. Anyone who isn't besotted with Brief Encounter has either never been in love, or doesn't deserve to be. --Andy Medhurst
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