Brief Encounter (1945) The Quintessential Woman's Noir Masterpiece

Statistics show that over 85 % of violent crimes are committed by men. 

Women account for 14% of violent crime but out of that 14% , 3 out of 4 of those offenses are for simple assault and 28 % of those assaults are committed by juveniles.  

Realistic Noir about women and Crime are not going to be about women toting guns around. Women are arrested for larceny, drug possession, forgery, fraud, embezzling, shoplifting, bunco (con artists), prostitution, lewd behavior, and drunk driving. (The total equals a rate of about 1 woman involved with the criminal justice system for every 109 adult women in the U.S. population. - Bureau of Justice Statistics - Special Report)

Realistic Noir about the vast majority of women (and basically for most of the rest of us) are going to be Dark Stories about "Domestic" Noir, i.e., affairs of the heart, extramarital affairs, family conflicts, job conflicts, neighbor conflicts, rivalry, jealousy, depression, addiction, mental illness, suicide, etc., etc. 

Which brings us to Brief Encounter. I'd seen this first as a kid on one of New York City's local TV channels that aired a lot of movies as a good part of their evening content. I was a train nut aka "railfan" back then (I was around  rode the subway a lot, five days a week into and out of Manhattan by way of Queensborough Plaza and the 60th Street Tunnel, under the East River) and what I remembered the most about Brief Encounter was the impressive shots of those trains rushing through that dark station. 

What I remember about it now was the way they were Stylistically lit. This Brit film has that same familiar and unmistakable Visual Style that fits right in with all the Hollywood Classic Film Noir, I saw as a kid, Murder My Sweet, Double Indemnity, Out Of The Past, The Lost Weekend, The Naked City, The Narrow Margin, Cat People, The Leopard Man, The Day The Earth Stood Still, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, The Thing From Outer Space, Blood On The Moon, The Outcasts of Poker Flat, Pursued, but nobody back then in the 1950s was calling them Film Noir. 

They were called Detective films, or Crime, Thrillers, Sci-Fi, Suspense, Horror, Westerns and Dramas. At the same time TV Crime programs proliferated, with often noir-ish episodes of Peter Gunn, Mike Hammer, Naked City, and Johnny Staccato to name a few. Anthology series like Alfred Hitchcock Presents along with The Twilight Zone mixed dark stories in all genres with quite a few of their episodes being also quite Noir-ish. Also in the mix were TV produced drama series like CBSs Playhouse 90, Four Star Playhouse, General Electric Theater, with their often dark stories with noir-ish "stage play" stylistic lighting effects. 

I've put it this way...

You watch enough Noirs and you literally get to the point where, I've heard it put this way, that "you know them when you see them." I'll go that one better. Noir, for me is a pan generic dark story told in a stylistic way that triggers a vibe that you tune to, almost akin to a drug/alcohol high. You get a Noir buzz. But its a strange type of high that is actually topsy-turvy to a drug/alcohol high in that it works like this. For Noir neophytes they will only get that high from the hard boiled hardcore Noirs with Detectives, Femme Fatales, and murder. They are the Noir junkies, the mainliners. But with the more Noirs you get exposed to you'll find that there is an endless variety of stories that shuffle and spiral away on different tendrils that provide enough of the elements that make a film a Noir. Your personal life experiences will also inform your affinity to the types of stories that will tip Noir for you. So your tolerance level to Noir goes down, you don't need the hardboiled, hard core stories to get the fix and you recognize the noir in all the various tragedies and picaresque situations that plague the human condition. Noir expands out to an ill delineated, fuzzy "on the cusp of Noir" point where a film can tip either way for an individual. 

So I got my pan generic "Noir-dar" turned on and tuned in long before I even knew what NOIR was, and I've known them when I've watched them ever since. So there was something in the back of my mind nagging me about finding and watching Brief Encounter again. 

Directed by David Lean (Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, Hobson's Choice, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia). 

Written by Noël Coward (screenplay) along with Anthony Havelock-Allan, David Lean, Ronald Neame (all uncredited), and based on Noël Coward's play. The beautiful Cinematography was by Robert Krasker (The Third Man, Odd Man Out). Music was from Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 played by Eileen Joyce with the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Muir Mathieson.

The film stars Celia Johnson as Laura Jesson, Trevor Howard (The Third Man, I Became a Criminal) as Dr Alec Harvey, Stanley Holloway as Albert Godby, the ticket inspector, Joyce Carey as Myrtle Bagot, the cafe owner, Cyril Raymond as Fred Jesson, Everley Gregg as Dolly Messiter, Margaret Barton as Beryl Walters, tea-room assistant, and Marjorie Mars as Mary Norton.

Story

Milford Junction Station. 

An express train roars through the station in a cloud of steam.  Albert Godby, a ticket taker climbs down from one platform and crosses the tracks to the other. He walks into the "refreshment room" and starts flirting with Myrtle behind the counter. 

Stanley Holloway as Albert Godby

Joyce Carey as Myrtle Bagot

We first see Laura and Alec sitting on the opposite side of the refreshment room seated at a table talking. 

Trevor Howard as Dr. Alec Harvey and Celia Johnson as Laura Jesson

Dolly, a gossipy woman with a motor mouth that Laura knows, comes into the refreshment room, sees Laura and sits down with them. She asks Alec if he would bring her a tea since she's all done in after a day in Milford. Politely Alec fetches some for her.

Everley Gregg as Dolly Messiter

By the time he comes back the chimes ring announcing the approaching arrival of Alec's his train. It is about to arrive at the junction. Alec says goodbye to Dolly and to Laura and squeezes her shoulder as he goes out the door, the back of his head is the last she sees of him. 

a last touch

Her last view of Alec

While Dolly chatters away Laura is wishing Alec would leave his train and come back in under the pretense that he left something behind. But she hears the train pull out and knows he's gone.

As Dolly goes up to the refreshment counter Laura hears the ring for the "boat" train. It's an express that does not stop at Milford Junction. She jumps up and runs out the door. She comes back in looking pale. Dolly asks if she is alright. Laura tells her she felt sick and went out for air. Dolly gets her something to drink from Myrtle that will settle her down.

Their train comes into the station. They get on and while Dolly is still chattering away Laura tells her she wants to rest her eyes, tunes Dolly out and we get the beginnings of a Female Voice Over narration of the tale, and we go into a flashback. 

The start of Laura's V.O. flashback

Laura Jesson is a married woman with two children.  

We pause when she is awaked by Dolly as they arrive in Ketchworth. 

Laura arrives home and starts to head up the stairs. Her husband calls out "Is that you Laura?" She answers yes from the landing 

We see her chat with her kids in their bedroom. Its the boys birthday tomorrow and he wants to do one thing while the daughter wants to do something else. Laura tells them that they will decide on it tomorrow. Laura then comes down into the parlor to sit with her husband Fred.

Laura chats with her kids in their bedroom. 

Fred is unemotional and predictable. He nightly routine is doing the crossword puzzle while Laura usually embroiders. 

Cyril Raymond as Fred Jesson

Laura turns on their radio and tunes to a station playing Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2  As she sits in her chair and she stares off in though and we return to her voice over and flashback. 

Laura tells us she first noticed Alec when he came into the refreshment room at Milford Junction station on a Thursday during her weekly jaunt to Milford. 

Their eyes met briefly. She heads out to the platform and gets a cinder in her eye from a passing express. She goes back into the refreshment room and asks Myrtle for a glass of water to wash out the cinder.

Alec comes over and tells Laura that he's a doctor and he will help. With his handkerchief he brushes out the cinder and it starts going Noirsville. 

Dr. Alec Harvey comes weekly from Cherry to Milford Junction to fill in at the hospital for a doctor who goes to London on Thursdays. He is also married.

On the next Thursday Laura runs into Alec outside a Boot's Drug Store "lending library." 

Then the following Thursday she has the only open booth at a crowded lunch counter and Alec walks in. They share a lunch. 

When Aled tells her he has free time they go to the Palladium Theater to catch a show. They start to fall in love. 

Noirsville

Of course showing two adulterers in a good light would have been taboo. The story in the film was altered to accommodate the censors. 

<spoilers>

Alec and Laura are stymied in their only attempt to consummate their relationship when in the play their tryst goes on for months. 

David Lean and Cinematography Krasker render a beautifully atmospheric Noir Domestic Drama about two individuals who completely out of character become obsessed with each other. The express trains rushing through the junction are also subtext suggesting powerful sexual urges. The various sounds of shrieking steam whistles, the roar of passing railway traffic, and alerting chimes of the approaching trains all enhance the emotional tensions. A distant locomotive whistle reminds Laura of lost Alec and it sets her off into a crying jag. 

In other sequences camera shots through banisters, railings, cage elevators, multiple pane windows suggest the various barriers and taboos Alec and Laura navigate around and break their affair through.

Multiple reflections in windows and mirrors suggest both soul searching and duplicity.

Both Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard are excellent. Johnson's wide range of facial and eye expressions are very compelling. 

Throughout the film there is also a running subplot of the out in the open, budding relationship between Joyce Carey as Myrtle and Stanley Holloway as  Albert the ticket inspector. It plays a bit like a comic relief valve in counterpoint to this dark. innocent and tragically accidental, love story. 

A very Visually Stylistic Noir. There's even a point where the film literally "Tips" Noir. There's no mistaking it if you are paying attention. A Masterpiece 10/10

Brief Encounter is based on Noël Coward's 1936 play  Still Life -  a short play in five scenes.

"The play's five scenes are set across the span of a year, from April to March. It charts the love affair between Laura Jesson, a housewife, and Alec Harvey, a married physician. The location is the refreshment room of "Milford Junction" railway station.

In the first scene Myrtle, who runs the station buffet, rebuffs the attempts of Albert, the ticket-inspector, to flirt with her. Laura is waiting for her train home after shopping. She is in pain from a piece of grit that has been blown into her eye. Alec introduces himself as a doctor and quickly removes it for her. She thanks him and goes to catch her train.

Three months later Alec and Laura are once more in the refreshment room. It becomes clear that after their first meeting they encountered each other a second time by chance and have enjoyed each other's company to the extent of arranging to lunch together and go to the cinema. There have been several such meetings. Laura is beginning to wonder about the propriety of meeting him so often, but Alec reminds her that he too is married, with children and other responsibilities.

In the third scene, set in October, Albert and Myrtle continue their slightly combative flirtation. Alec and Laura come in, and over coffee they admit that they are in love with each other. They are both determined not to upset their happy marriages, but will meet secretly. They make arrangements to meet at the flat of a friend of Alec.

By December they are both agonised by guilt and agree that their affair must stop. Alec tells Laura that he has been offered an attractive medical post in South Africa and will accept it unless she asks him not to.

The fifth and final scene is set in March. Albert seems to be making progress with Myrtle. Alec and Laura enter. He is leaving to take up his new post in South Africa, and she has come to see him off. They are prevented from having the passionate farewell they both yearn for when Dolly, a talkative friend of hers intrudes into their last moments together, and their final goodbye is cruelly limited to a formal handshake. He leaves, and Laura remains, while Dolly talks on. Suddenly, as the sound of the approaching express train is heard, Laura suddenly rushes out to the platform. She returns "looking very white and shaky".[20] Dolly persuades Myrtle to pour some brandy for Laura, who sips it. The sound of their train is heard, and Dolly gathers up her parcels as the curtain falls." (Wiki)