Trivia & Fun Facts on BRIEF ENCOUNTER

Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto provides most of the film's score. The picture opens with the start of the first movement and ends with the third movement's final bars.

The extra walking on the train platform as Stanley Holloway enters the refreshment room at the film's opening was Elaine Maudsley, who worked in the refreshment room during filming and won the role as a reward for providing cast and crew with tea. When Holloway kept playfully grabbing for her legs, director David Lean had her move further up the platform.

Posters advertised the film with the line, "A story of the most precious moments in a woman's life!" The Toronto exhibitor, however, must have missed the film's restraint and the fact that the love affair is never consummated when he sold the film with the line, "Girls who live dangerously."

The film was banned in Ireland for treating adultery sympathetically.

Some of the train sounds recorded at Carnforth Station were re-used in Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962).

The bad film Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard walk out on is titled Flames of Passion, an in-joke reference to a 1922 British silent film starring Mae Marsh and written by noted producer Herbert Wilcox. The title re-surfaced years later on a gay porn film modeled on Brief Encounter.

One error in the film is a shot of a train headed North on the Southbound track. When Lean realized he needed the shot, he had an earlier shot of a Southbound train reversed.

After the success of Brief Encounter, Lean was accosted by an angry man in a train station, who told him how much he hated the film. "Do you realize, Sir, that if Celia Johnson could contemplate being unfaithful to her husband, my wife could contemplate being unfaithful to me?" he stammered.

Three other plays from Noel Coward's Tonight at 8:30 were filmed under that title in England in 1952 and released in the U.S. as Meet Me Tonight. The film included "Ways and Means," with Valerie Hobson; "Fumed Oak," with Stanley Holloway; and "Red Peppers," with Kay Walsh. We Were Dancing was expanded as a vehicle for Norma Shearer in 1942. "Red Peppers" and "Hands Across the Sea" were adapted as experimental television broadcasts in England in 1938. "Red Peppers" also inspired television adaptations in 1958, 1969 and 1991, the latter starring Joan Collins and Anthony Newley.

Leading lady Celia Johnson could be considered James Bond's aunt. Her husband, travel writer Peter Fleming, was Bond author Ian Fleming's brother. Her daughters currently hold literary rights to the Bond books.

Famous Quotes from BRIEF ENCOUNTER

"This can't last. This misery can't last. I must remember that and try to control myself. Nothing lasts really. Neither happiness nor despair. Not even life lasts very long" -- Celia Johnson, as Laura Jesson, contemplating the pain of her separation from Trevor Howard as Dr. Alec Harvey.

"Fred -- dear Fred, there's so much I want to say to you. You're the only one in the world with enough wisdom and gentleness to understand. If only it were somebody else's story and not mine. As it is, you're the only one in the world that I can never tell." -- Johnson, as Laura, speaking to her husband in voice over to start her narration.

"It all started on an ordinary day, in the most ordinary place in the world." -- Johnson, as Laura, thinking back on her first meeting with Howard, as Dr. Alec Harvey.

"That's how it all began, just through me getting a little piece of grit in my eye. I completely forgot the whole incident. It didn't mean anything to me at all. At least I didn't think it did." -- Johnson recalling her first meeting with Howard.

"Well, I must be getting along to the hospital."
"Now I must be getting along to the grocers."
"What exciting lives we lead, don't we?" -- Howard and Johnson meeting for the second time.

"I stood there and watched his train draw out of the station. I stared after it, until its taillight had vanished into the darkness. I imagined him getting out at Churley, giving up his ticket, walking back through the streets, letting himself into his house with his latchkey. His wife, Madeleine, will probably be in the hall to meet him or perhaps upstairs in her room, not feeling very well. Small, dark, and rather delicate. I wondered if he'd say: 'I met such a nice woman at the Kardomah. We had lunch and went to the pictures.' And then suddenly, I knew that he wouldn't. I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that he wouldn't say a word - and at that moment, the first awful feeling of danger swept over me." -- Johnson, realizing she and Howard have embarked on a romance.

"I've been looking for you everywhere -- I've watched every train." -- Howard, on the day he and Johnson almost miss each other.

"I've fallen in love! I'm an ordinary woman. I didn't think such violent things could happen to ordinary people." --Johnson.

"It's awfully easy to lie to someone when you know you're trusted implicitly, so very easy and so very degrading." -- Johnson's guilt begins to surface.

"If you don't learn to behave yourself there won't be a tonight. Or any night either!" -- Joyce Carey, as Myrtle Bagot, trying to cool down Stanley Holloway, as Albert Godby.

"How often did you decide that you were never going to see me again?"
"Several times a day."
"So did I." -- Howard and Johnson considering their tortured relationship.

"I want to remember every minute. Always. Always. To the end of my days." -- Johnson, as she and Howard end their relationship.

"You've been a long way away. Thank you for coming back to me." -- Cyril Raymond, as Fred Jesson, almost acknowledging his wife's romance.

Compiled by Frank Miller