Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard meet by chance at a railway station (Milford Junction). Both are married and neither will stoop to impropriety. Yet there is an immediate attraction and a series of stolen lunch dates develops into one of the cinema’s most affecting love affairs. It was David Lean who hit on the flashback structure which takes Noel Coward’s one-act play out of the station, and for all the lovers’ stiff upper lip rectitude this is where the filmmaker’s romantic inclinations blossomed (Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No 2 does the rest). In a funny way it’s very In the Mood for Love, 1945 edition.
Nominated for three Academy Awards (Best Director, Best Actress and Best Screenplay) the film won the Grand Prix at Cannes. Today it is considered one of the greatest British films ever made.
Lean’s sad, buttoned-up account of unconsummated love is about all of us and our cautious natures.
Zadie Smith
One of the most vivid, impassioned and painfully believable love stories ever committed to celluloid.
Tom Huddleston, Time Out
David Lean
Trevor Howard, Celia Johnson
UK
1945
English
Grand Prix, Cannes
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Credits
Producer
Noël Coward
Screenwriter
David Lean, Ronald Neame, Anthony Havelock-Allan
Cinematography
Robert Krasker
Editor
Jack Harris
Original Music
Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2
Art Director
L. P. Williams
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