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
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,