Anthony Havelock-Allan production was a film adaptation of Coward's 1939 play This Happy Breed, which was produced by Coward, directed by Lean, and shot by Neame. All three partners — Havelock-Allan, Lean and Neame — collaborated on the script. The exact same combination of talents created the 1945 film adaptation of Coward's comedy "Blithe Spirit". The quartet then produced the classic "Brief Encounter", with Havelock-Allan and Neame sharing producing duties with Coward, with Coward helping write the script, an adaption of his 1936 one-act play "Still Life". The film won the Palme d'Or at the 1946 Cannes Film Festival while lead Celia
Still Life (play) make arrangements to meet at the flat of a friend of Alec. By December, they are both agonised by guilt and agree that their affair must stop. The following spring, Alec is leaving to work abroad, and Laura comes to see him off but is prevented from giving him the passionate farewell they both yearn for when a talkative friend of hers intrudes into their last moments together, and their final goodbye is cruelly limited to a formal handshake. Meanwhile, Myrtle and Albert, two of the station staff, carry on a boisterous, uncomplicated relationship. Coward himself later said of the