David Lean Directs Noël Coward

“Wow. 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, so that's really cool. 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 I, he, he did, 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. And, but you know, I was very young when I worked with Spiegel. So he came to the set, started to talk to the actors, and I called George Stevens and I said, "What do I do about him?" He said, "Throw him off the set, Jack." So, you know, I was all of 25, gonna throw Sam Spiegel off the set. So I went and I called Elia Kazan. I said, "This is what George Stevens told me." Kazan said, "Jack, don't worry about it. He's been thrown off bigger sets than yours." Okay.”

“This is David Lean and Noël Coward, both of whom… nobody better. And the fact that they came together, some people don’t know because you know other David Lean movies and you might know Noël Coward plays, but Brief Encounter is very famous. Brief Encounter. There’s no more heartbreaking, yearning, regret-filled movie, but ends with a certain amount of happiness and peace somehow, brilliantly, even though it’s… it really tears you apart. In Which We Serve you might not have seen, but is magnificent. Noël Coward is in it. I believe he hated making it and decided he didn’t want to do movies anymore after that. He said, “I’m going back to the theater.” 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. Because you think of him as this enormous epic guy, but these are more intimate.”

“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. God, my tastes are all over the place, aren’t they? But I think that’s what movies are supposed to sort of do to you. You know, you’re supposed to get excited about life.”

“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. Surprisingly subtle and intelligent and… But then it’s David Lean, so maybe it’s not that surprising.”