Brief Encounter (1974 film) Brief Encounter (1974 film) Brief Encounter is a 1974 British-Italian television film starring Richard Burton and Sophia Loren, adapted from the play "Still Life" by Noël Coward. The plot of the film is about two strangers, both married to others, who meet in a railway station and find themselves in a brief but intense affair. The material was previously the basis for the David Lean film "Brief Encounter" (1945). Burton was cast at the last moment, after Robert Shaw dropped out. The film had its premiere on U.S. television on 12 November 1974 as part of the "Hallmark Hall of
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