David Lean Directs Noël Coward

“Oh, you probably wonder why I’m saying that. David Lean Directs Noël Coward. Whose good idea was that? I hope they were well paid. And the films, if you’re wondering, are In Which We Serve, This Happy Breed. Beautiful. Blithe Spirit, of course, and Brief Encounter. I bet you’ve never made movies that good.”

“Well, Noël Coward is a wonderful playwright and songwriter. And, when I did The Godfather, I sort of got to be so well known at a young age that they wanted me– They offered me many opportunities to direct operas or plays. So I did do a play, and it was a play by Noël Coward called Private Lives. And I did it with a sort of unusual twist to it. And I’m going to apply that same twist on this new material that I’m looking at.”

“This is David Lean Directs Noël Coward, which includes Brief Encounter. I actually haven't seen the other films in this collection, which is exactly the type of thing I wanted to take on today. Brief Encounter has one of my favorite strings of dialogue of all time. She says, 'I've fallen in love. I am an ordinary woman. I didn't know such violent things could happen to ordinary people,' which is devastating and that's generally how I like my cinema.”

“And I met David Lean because he directed for the same producer, Sam Spiegel, that did End as a Man, did The Strange One. And David Lean didn't like him very much. We met, we had dinner one night and we discussed the unhappiness with which Mr. Spiegel put both of us through. In my case, as he said, he would never let him interfere with his work as a director with the actors.”

“This is David Lean and Noël Coward, both of whom… nobody better. Brief Encounter is very famous. There’s no more heartbreaking, yearning, regret-filled movie, but ends with a certain amount of happiness and peace somehow. In Which We Serve you might not have seen, but is magnificent. Noël Coward is in it. This Happy Breed I have not seen. Blithe Spirit, Rex Harrison. I haven’t seen that in a long time, but I can’t wait to see it again. Can’t believe David Lean directed those.”

“I found another one. I found a true treasure. David Lean Directs Noël Coward. In Which We Serve, This Happy Breed, Blithe Spirit, and Brief Encounter. That’s going to be a really good weekend.”

“David Lean Directs Noël Coward. So there’s… Oh, there’s four movies on here. Brief Encounter is probably the one that I am most excited about here. It’s a love story, and it’s about people having an affair, an illicit affair. And yet all told through the micro-gestures and moments of eyes darting, hands touching. Beautifully shot. The sumptuousness of the black and whites and the billowing steam from the train engines, and just as a study of humanity, it’s a really beautiful film.”