Chip Kaufmann’s Pick: “Brief Encounter”

Brief Encounter (1945)

With colleague Michelle Keenan having picked Casablanca for her DVD pick, I’ll recommend its British equivalent, Brief Encounter.This 1945 film written by Noel Coward and starring Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson is considered to be the greatest British romance ever made but has been seen by far fewer people.

The story is simple enough. Two ordinary people Dr. Alec Harvey (Howard) and suburban housewife Laura Jesson (Johnson) have a chance encounter that leads to something more. The film is told in flashback as Laura tells her husband how it all happened. It also subtly and cleverly relates the feelings of both characters who feel shame and desperation but cannot help themselves.

A major difference between the two is how the American and the British movie industries treat the material. Casablanca is Old Hollywood at its height. Elaborate settings and sophisticated camerawork are employed along with mega star power in Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and the incredible supporting cast. There is absolutely no glamour in Brief Encounter. Howard and Johnson look like normal, ordinary people and because of that it seems much closer to real life.

The film was an early success for director David Lean who would later specialize in gargantuan Hollywood style epics like Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. Here he uses his wartime budgetary restraints to his advantage by using location settings and imaginative lighting during the studio train sequences. Trains are a central theme of the film with most of the action taking place in train stations in and around London.

The new Criterion Collection DVD of Brief Encounter is absolutely flawless and makes the film look like it was shot yesterday not 65 years ago. Most of us have seen Casablanca. See the new 70th anniversary edition and then follow it up with this one which is now readily available and make sure you have plenty of Kleenex handy.

Michelle Keenan’s Pick: “Casablanca”

Casablanca (1942)

You must remember this! One of the most beloved, if not the most beloved film of all time, Casablancaturns 70 this year. Some of you may have celebrated this auspicious occasion by watching Turner Classic Movie’s special presentation back in March in theatres across the country. Warner Brothers is marking the occasion for home theatres with the most elaborate DVD set to date for Casablanca.

The new DVD and BluRay set includes 14 hours of bonus content, including deleted scenes, outtakes and several feature-length documentaries: The Brothers Warner, You Must Remember This, Jack L. Warner: The Last Mogul, Casablanca: An Unlikely Classic, and Michael Curtiz: The Greatest Director You Never Heard Of.The set also includes a reproduction of the original poster, a 60-page production art book and lest we forget a beautifully restored version of he film itself.

The timeless tale of love during World War II lives on. Set in unoccupied Morroco during the early days of World War II, Rick Blain (Humphrey Bogart), the hard-talking proprietor of Rick’s Café American, meets a former paramour Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman), with far greater consequences than heartbreak, bitterness and unrequited love, “Of all the gin joints in all the world, why did she have to come walking into mine…”

If you are reading this, the film likely needs no introduction. Suffice it to say Casablancais a film that never gets old. Its sparkling script by the Epstein brothers is work unto itself. Every line, vital and throw away, is sharp, witty and sexy. The supporting cast is astoundingly wonderful. Claude Rains, Paul Henreid, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre are part of the perfect and wholly unlikely storm that became one of the most iconic films of all time.

For me Casablanca will never grow old. If you’ve never seen it, you simply must. If it’s been a while, rent it, buy it, do whatever you have to do to see it in all its glory. You will not be disappointed.