The Astonished Heart (film) The Astonished Heart (film) The Astonished Heart is a 1950 British drama film directed by Terence Fisher. It stars Celia Johnson, Noël Coward, and Margaret Leighton, and is based on Coward's play "The Astonished Heart" from his cycle of ten plays, "". Inspired by the great success of the 1945 film "Brief Encounter", which also had been adapted from "Tonight at 8:30", Coward agreed to have "The Astonished Heart" produced as a motion picture. As with the previous film, Coward also wrote the screenplay. Production began in 1949 and featured not only Noël Coward in one of his rare film
Post Mortem (Coward play) "shallow", lacking in "real experience", and which "muddled the issues … I might have done better if I had given more time to it, and less vehemence." When the play was first published, "The Daily Mirror" wrote, "A fearful study in disillusionment! … The misery is, if I may use a vulgarism, laid on very thick. But there are passion and brave satire in this play. Mr. Coward is to be congratulated. He is always renewing himself. I am afraid, however, that, for the stage, "Post Mortem" is really too depressing to make another "Journey's End." T. E. Lawrence considered