Great film and restoration
We studied this film in a class I took at Simmons College titled 'the art of film.' I loved this movie when I saw it and finally bought it. It's still wonderful! It's such a well written and directed movie that it was destined to be considered a classic.

Brief Encounter and Chinatown
Just to set the record striaght with the current review Amazon has posted on this film at the moment; the railway scene in Brief Encounter did not inspire Robert Towne's "flaw in the iris" scene in Chinatown. It so happens that the girl Towne was dating at the time (and now his wife) had a flaw in her iris. - Ezekiel Steiner

briefenc review
After I got this DVD to play without stuttering it was amazingly bright and clear, especially for a 60 year old movie.

Brief (but excellent) Encounter
Entranced by this movie & its soundtrack when I first viewed it 15 years ago, it is a classic of superb acting - an excellent presentation of passion and love without the gratuitous sex of modern film. It will turn the viewer into a romantic, and most please the already-romantic. And, the DVD offers good insight to the wonderful Rachmaninoff score.

The Sigh of Midnight Trains in Empty Stations
This is my favorite British film of all time. Brilliant writing, fine acting, ecconomicaly concise production and inspired direction all combine to make a landmark movie and a defining moment in social history.

Celia Johnson is terrific! She is talented and beautiful. More than girlishly pretty, she has the deep resonant beauty of a full grown woman. Her eyes are huge and so expressive, as she copes with the guilt and sordidness of an extra-marital love. She narrates to move the story along in places. Her performance draws you in and holds you. A lesser actress could not have pulled it off so well.

Trevor Howard plays her illicit love. Their screen chemistry is subtly electric. Stanley Holloway and Joyce Carey provide a light sub-plot, which compliments the main story.

The film was released in the Spring of 1945, just as World War 2 was ending in Europe. Whether on purpose or not, the film announced a return to peacetime morality. The characters fall in love, but their love remains unrequited. Love is allowed, but the heart is not allowed to rule the head. The film is set in an unspecified time of peace with no blackout, no bombsites, and with cakes and chocolate freely available. There is a 'forward to the past' kind of message.

Speak to an old Brit who was there, and you will find out that all sorts went on during the war when couples were separated, and there was horrific stress. A lot more than dancing went on up on Plymouth Hoe, when people did not know if their homes would be standing from one day to the next, and they barely had enough food to keep a cat alive.

In truth, food was rationed into the '50s in Britain, and I wonder if we have ever got over the effects of that war. The film portrays a British middle-class idyl that would never return. Even the British laugh at those accents now. Nobody talks like that anymore.

If you've never seen it, you are in for a rare treat. If you haven't seen it for a while, then it is well worth revisiting. My review title is a line from a Noel Coward song. I thought it fitted since he wrote the screenplay, and the main setting is a railway station.