The Passionate Friends

This is a ‘Brief Encounter’ kind of a film of the upper middle classes focusing on the immediate post-war period. Watching these privileged people struggle with their repressed feelings is not a pretty sight. It is difficult to believe that Ann Todd had sex with either her husband, Claude Rains, or her old flame, Trevor Howard. She is a cold fish indeed. Yet the film is fascinating to watch with beautifully restored black and white images and a very literate script from thriller writer Eric Ambler. Perhaps it is the period detail that grabs me as one who grew up in the 1950’s to 1960’s. The growth and opening up of international air travel allows David Lean to use locations abroad and even to dwell on the details of Ann Todd’s airline meal. His attention to detail really comes to the fore here and he uses the complex back forward flashes with considerable skill. I was less impressed by some of the images framed by Guy Green that often seemed to be over-lit and sometimes a bit ugly. An old-fashioned film that I would nevertheless recommend to anyone interested in the history of (British) film.

The quality of the restoration of this lovely film is absolutely superb.

A romantic tale told as only David Lean could tell. Devoid of brazen sex, brutal violence and disgusting language, it is an example of what good film making used to be.

It makes it abundantly clear to any true film fan how much expertise and skill has had to be replaced by noise and mayhem in pictures today.

Great David Lean film, taut and well constructed. Never before has the simple act of asking someone in for a drink been so filled with anxiety as when Claude Rains invites his wife's lover in for a post-theatre drink. Rains is superb as the banker in tight control of his life and emotions, but who is forced to face the fact that his wife has a lover. Superb scene in a Swiss hotel when Rains is toying with a telescope. What will he see... and what will he do? This is an intimate black and white film, very different from the sprawling epics we usually associate Lean with. It shows how good he was with smaller scale dramas. Highly recommended.

A real classic, well written and acted story, stunning black and white photography by THE Master, Freddy Young, and well restored By the BFI