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) is not Coward's thumping message but the mechanical nature of Cavan's civilian Cook's tour and the easy caricature of soft targets: philandering press-magnates, pleasure-seeking bishops and purblind Lady Bountifuls. Surprisingly, Coward's social satire is less potent than his straightforward political anger." "The Sunday Times" praised both the production and the play: I would never have guessed that this 80-minute vitriolic anti-war fantasy, written in 1930, was by Noel Coward. Its first professional production reveals it as a tough, febrile piece, awash with melodrama and blazing up now and again with bitter, glittering humour... Coward's hatred of this brittle, blasé age,