Tonight at 8:30 1942, with a screenplay by Claudine West, Hans Rameau and George Froeschel. It was directed by Robert Z. Leonard. The film starred Norma Shearer and Melvyn Douglas, and also featured Florence Shirley, Lee Bowman and Lenore J. Coffee. Coward adapted "Still Life" for the screen as "Brief Encounter" in 1945. The film was remade in 1974 starring Richard Burton and Sophia Loren. In May 2009, Houston Grand Opera premiered an opera in two acts based on "Brief Encounter", with music by André Previn from a libretto by John Caird. For a 1952 film "Meet Me Tonight", directed by Anthony Pelissier,
Noël Coward strongly influenced by them. He recalled: "I was born into a generation that still took light music seriously. The lyrics and melodies of Gilbert and Sullivan were hummed and strummed into my consciousness at an early age. My father sang them, my mother played them... my aunts and uncles, who were legion, sang them singly and in unison at the slightest provocation." His colleague Terence Rattigan wrote that as a lyricist Coward was "the best of his kind since W. S. Gilbert." Notes References Works Portals Noël Coward Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English