Brief Encounter

Remakes (and sequels) have been a staple of Cinema from the beginning of the media. It is pretty much a hit or miss venture though. If you take what's good of the original and build upon it and update key features too current standards, you can have a success. Note, such films like THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (1924/1940) or KING KONG (1933/2005) succeeded in their attempts. Others like KING KONG (1976) fail, miserably.

BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1945) is the template for this film. It is as perfect as could be made on such a subject and we rate it IMDb**********Ten. The story is simple, Love, innocently found by accident and tragically lost. Why, it just happened for the two (2) principals involved at the wrong time. These are portrayed in a convincing and sensitive manner by TREVOR HOWARD and CECILIA JOHNSON. Neither are conventionally leading Star material, but quality Character Actors. For the details watch the film.

Now what went wrong? A T.V. Movie, remade practically scene for scene with name actors RICHARD BURTON and SOPHIA LOREN should have at least scored IMDb******Six. Both actors though appear disinterested, just showing up to punch their time-clocks and pick up their checks. Neither are involved with their characters or with each other. You do not believe they are in Love or when they finally separate it is any great loss to either of them. That should not be and that's why it fails in its intent. Sometimes it is just better to leave things alone.

Richard Burton is not Trevor Howard, and Sophia Loren is not Celia Johnson, and although they were two of the world's leading actors, they fall flat to the David Lean version 29 years earlier. The differences are interesting to observe. The David Lean film consists mostly of flashbacks, but there is no flashback at all here. Also there is no Rachmaninov's second piano concerto, but instead there is a very good music score by Cyril Ornadel, which saves the film, together with all the domestic natural scenes of Winchester and its countryside. John le Mesurier plays the part of the friend who drags an ideal love affair to a more banal level of "sordid squalidness", which ultimately shatters the love story. Dolly enters in the last moment to complete the destruction, but in the end we are left hanging, as doctor Harvey here has a wife, who is quite beautiful, and we can't guess the rest. What we miss most of all in this film is the very gentlemanly part of Trevor Howard, replaced by Richard Burton's more embarassed bluntness, and the very English Celia Johnson, who is replaced by Sophia Loren, who fortunately though confesses to her Italianness. It's a good film, but, like most remakes, a bleak shadow to the original, in spite of it being in colour.

Unremarkable and unmemorable remake of an old, celebrated English film. Although it may be overly maligned as a total disaster (which it is not), it never builds any tension and betrays its TV origins. Richard Burton sleepwalks through his role, and Sophia Loren's closed (in this movie) face doesn't display much passion, either. (**)

Is it the age we live in, or is it that objectively this is a slow-moving quaint view of the 50's England? Sophia Loren is lovely as usual, and you can't help but think that this film was also a commentary on her private life. Her husband, Carlos Ponti, produced this film. A much older man, he must have had to face the dilemma featured in this movie often. And the answer was obviously always the same: the allure of a sexually titillating romance could not be overcome for a victim of WWII the wonderful stability of home and family, no matter how 'boring'. Definitely a morality tale, 'Brief Encounter' is based on a Noel Coward play which I find intriguing. The movement is slow, the dialogue similarly, and you are left wondering what exactly was missing from her home life that she should turn to this fellow. It's perfectly obvious what's missing from his, when his wife barely looks up from her writing to say, "Our love slipped away so long ago, I hardly noticed it. But why is love necessary, anyhow?"

Lew Grade strikes again as he brings star power together for this television remake of David Lean's classic.

This modern updating has Dr Alec Harvey (Richard Burton) meeting housewife Anna Jesson (Sophia Loren) after she gets some grit in her eye.

Both are trapped in mundane marriages, just pottering along. Harvey and Jesson find a spark, maybe destined to be soulmates.

As Anna works part time at a Citizens Advice Bureau. They start to regularly meet then both go in opposite directions on the train.

Is their growing relationship enough for both of them to walk out on their respective families.

Loren is too glamorous to be an ordinary housewife. Burton at least relishes a chance to be gentle and romantic.

The movie does not work, it is too flat and dull. I think the Lean version was of its time and works in that respect.