The Brief Encounter that has lasted 80 years and counting

This year marks the eightieth anniversary of one of the greatest romantic films ever made. SPENCER VIGNES looks back at its enduring appeal and the wartime snags it overcame to get made

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T REMAINS one of the most popular, evocative and enduring films ever made in the UK. Set in and around the fictional Milford Junction, the plot tells the story of two married strangers who meet by chance in a railway station café and fall helplessly in love.

There’s no nudity, no sex scenes and no consummation of the relationship, which somehow only adds to its charm. Instead we get 86 minutes of middle-class English reserve, cut-glass accents and repressed ardour.

The film is, of course, Brief Encounter starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard, made during the bitterly cold early weeks of 1945 and released later the same year.

By coincidence, at the same time as Brief Encounter turns 80, so Britain is also marking the 200th anniversary of the modern railway, with the Stockton and Darlington line — the first of its kind in the world — having opened in 1825.

In the history of UK cinema, there aren’t many films that have tapped into the magic and romance often associated with trains — or rather steam trains — as effectively as Brief Encounter. Small wonder the film has been a constant in the TV schedules for decades, this year perhaps more than any other.

“There’s nothing so poignant as a railway journey, especially people saying goodbye to each other at a station in wartime,” Margaret Barton, at 99-years-old the last surviving member of the cast, once said.

“The film still fascinates people today because it evokes the atmosphere of the war so well. There’s a lovely shot as the titles go up of that great express running through and the train making that marvellous noise, with all the steam everywhere.”

Every film has its ups and downs while coming together. The right actors have to be cast, the right locations have to be found, the right script has to be written, and so on. Brief Encounter certainly had more ups and downs than most.