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The Passionate Friends [VHS]

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The emotions that drive the characters in this story are timeless. Rarely is a love story told so satisfyingly. The acting is controlled yet believable, with Ann Todd as the wife, Claude Raines as the wealthy husband, and Trevor Howard as the wife's "friend." Ann Todd's beautiful, intelligent face reflects emotions that she tries to control. Claude Raines hides his feelings under a calculating manner. Trevor Howard is understated and irresistably romantic, as he was in another excellent film, Brief Encounter of 1945. This movie has engaging characters, beautiful photography, and good music. It's a classic created with restraint and elegance.

This Rank/Cineguild production directed by David Lean is based on a novel by H G Wells, here adapted by Lean and Stanley Haynes, though with a screenplay credited to Eric Ambler. Although the plot is about a triangle, Lean's focus is on Ann Todd as the woman between two men, her husband and the man who was her first love but whom she refused to marry. Her situation is presented in an exchange between the man, Trevor Howard and Todd - "If two people really love each other they want to be together. They want to belong to each other", Todd - "I want to belong to myself", "Then your life will be a failure". However in the tradition of upper class Brits, Todd's life of failure means a marriage to a successful banker, Claude Rains.
The narrative has an unusual triple flashback structure, which is perhaps why it needed three writers, with the present being narrated by Todd with the prospect of a divorce, and flashbacks to the vacation in Switzerland where the instigating incident occurs, Todd's memory/flashback of 9 years earlier re-meeting Howard, and small memories of their first romance. The initial meeting is tainted by lines like Todd's "Why can't we be in love without the clutching and gripping", though later Todd admits to "not being a very good person". Howard's character has his ambiguities too, being a university biology lecturer who knowingly has an affair with a married woman. The infidelity gets a funny spin by Rains' business with Germany and Italy pre-WW2, and Rains saying he has "a taste for intrigue", though the film being made post-WW2 allows him to speak of the "Teutonic hysteria" of the Germans.
In spite of some of Lean's technical touches, the thing that de-passionates the situation is Todd, in her first film for her then husband. Whilst at times she resembles Garbo, the rather butch Todd lacks the divine one's expressiveness, with Lean reduced to filming her running from Howard in slow motion to give her some lyricism. All three of the leads are oddly lit indelicately, perhaps to suggest that all this passage of time has aged them, but this with Todd, adds to the destruction of romantic intent. Lean provides a vocal montage of telephone conversations, cuts from a kiss to a bunch of flowers, doors slamming to a typewriter slide of the divorce document, gives Rains a cuckold paranoid montage, and has a "Keep Smiling" poster featured in the background of the climactic scene in the train underground, though the idea of Todd not buying a ticket before she enters rather pre-empts things.
Rains has the audience empathy, even if the odd way he stand in a ¾ pose when he confronts someone seems silly. He is the more emotional of the three, but because of the British standards of polite behaviour, his yells are either heard off-camera or with his back to us. The best scene reads as Hitchcock-influenced with Rains dictating to his secretary and Lean continually cutting to a pair of tickets to a play Todd and Howard go to see. The title First Love gets a comic payoff when we hear it is a musical with a fatuous title song.

I only wish it were available at Amazon on DVD---I happened to see it on one of the cable movie channels today and immediately wanted it but guess I'll have to wait on availability---Ann Todd is, I believe, such an underrated actress---she gave such a fine performance here, as well as in The Paradine Case and especially also in Madeleine---the story line in this movie has elements of another Trevor Howard masterpiece, Brief Encounter (particularly the use made of trains relative to the female lead), tho the timeline in Encounter was measured in weeks while in Friends we view a love affair over a number of years---the romantic (limited as it may have been) pairing of Ann Todd with Claude Rains was an interesting May-December combination which found greater importance in putting the Todd character in best perspective---bittersweet romantic elements mixed with intrigue and set in glamorous locations all made for an absolutely satisfying two hours---and take note of the delight in Ann Todd's observations as she sets out on holiday in the very beginning: airborne, she revels in the abundance of white bread, butter, creme and fresh fruit served to her, all things generally unavailable to Britons even then (1946) and certainly during the war years

A Review of the movie The Passionate Friends

Notorious II

From the very beginning this movie reminded me of the movie Notorious. I had recently purchased a copy of Notorious. Indeed it was my third purchase of Notorious, as the other two purchased several years ago, were, or became defective so the story was one in which I was very familiar. Indeed that has been one of my all time favorites.

The comparisons are rather striking.

1. Claude Rains was the male lead in both movies. In each movie the leading man entered into a marriage that soon became very vulnerable.
In Notorious, his wife (Ingrid Berman) was involved with another man, (Cary Grant), a CIA agent.
In The Passionate Friends, his wife (Ann Todd) was involved with another man (Trevor Howard), a highly successful scientist and professor.

2. In Notorious, Rains plays the role of a former Nazi officer, in charge of a group of former Nazi officers in Rio, in 1946. They are in Brazil, working on finding uranium deposits.
In The Passionate Friends, Rains plays the role of a highly successful banker.

3. Both movies have extremely complex plots and relationshps.
In Notorious, Rains discovers after a few weeks of bliss, that he is married to a woman who is a very close friend of a CIA agent. He seeks help from his mother (Leopoldine Konstantin), and tells her: I am married to a CIA agent. He says he will kill her. She cautions him that he cannot do anything that would lead the other nazi officers to discover his predicament, or they will have to eliminate him. She comes up with a plan to very gradually poison Bergman, so that she will ultimately die of an undiagnosed illness. At that point Grant reenters the movie and rescues her from the Nazi residence, ostensibly taking her to a hospital.

Inputs, from three reviews on The Passionate Friends, are used below.

(a) Wikipedia. The story is told by episodes of memories by Todd while on holiday in Switzerland. This movie goes into the past and tells of the true love between Todd and Howard. However Todd decides to end this relationship and instead chooses Rains, who gives her affection, stability and security.

(b) Amazon.com. In this review, the focus is on Ann Todd as the woman between two men: her husband (Claude Rains) and her first love (Trevor Howard). There are flashbacks to a Switzerland vacation. The infidelity gets a funny spin by Rains business with Germany and Italy pre WW2. This film was made in post WW2, which allowed Rains to speak of the Teutonic hysteriah of the Germans.

(c) Turner Classic Movies. This is organized by key individuals in order of their presentation.
(i)David Lean was the second and primary director in this movie, and was heavily involved with the lives of the principals.
(ii)Trevor Howard plays a variation of the character that brought him so much attention and acclaim in Leanfs earlier drama: Brief Encounter (1945). This was a non stressful shot for Howard as it was filmed in Switzerland. In his spare time he could get in some skiing and mountain climbing.
(iii)Ann Todd. In contrast it was more stressful for Todd and Lean as they were having an affair. They had been having an affair for some time and they finally married in 1949.
(iv)Claude Rains. He was troubled by what he saw on the set. Rains disliked Todd, who he felt had wasted everyonefs time with her prima donna behavior. Rains was also concerned by Leanfs personal life, which seemed to be slipping over onto the set and affecting the picture. He also knew that Lean was seeing a psychoanalyst. Yet, Rains recognized Leans immense talent and said: I cannot say enough about the man as a director. He is magnificent.

Indeed both movies had extremely complex plots. And indeed the comparisons between the two movies was rather striking Somehow the writers and direction was able to end the movie on a happy note with Rains back with Todd and Howard back with his own wife and family.