And 'Baluchistan'! I'll tell you who wouldn't spend time with Laura working out which words fit with 'Baluchistan' in a grid. Photograph: iTunesĪnd is it any wonder? OK, Fred - it may well have been Laura that encouraged you to continue with the crossword, but listen to how she described it: 'your old puzzle'. Here the film declares that crosswords are a retreat from the world and from feeling - an abstraction that ultimately sends respectable wives into the arms of utter strangers in railway refreshment rooms. Not the word 'romance' not the seven-letter string R-O-M-A-N-C-E: it's the real thing your wife is crying out for! 'Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance' - it'll be in the Oxford Book of English Verse.įRED: No, that's right, I'm certain - it fits with 'delirium' and 'Baluchistan'.

LAURA (with an effort): Romance, I think - yes, I'm almost sure it is. You're a poetry addict - help me over this - it's Keats - 'When I behold upon the night-starred face, huge cloudy symbols of a high' - something - in seven letters. Now get on with your old puzzle and leave me in peace.įRED: All right - have it your way. Nothing more than that - really nothing more than that. LAURA: I'd been shopping and I was tired and the refreshment room was very hot and I suddenly felt sick. Yet, in the very next scene, Laura avoids telling Fred the real reason she had been feeling queer earlier - and then. LAURA (forcing a smile): You have the most peculiar ideas of relaxation.įred - the film is saying - Fred: can't you see that your wife is forcing that smile? The last thing she wants is listen to you calling out clues. You can help me with the Times crossword. No, Fred is a kind and decent man: the villain in Brief Encounter is the Times crossword.Ĭonsider this, the first time we see Laura and Fred together:įRED: Come and sit by the fire in the library and relax. Crucially, this is not because her husband Fred is a monster. In Noel Coward's screenplay, wife and mother Laura Jesson considers an extramarital affair.

Black and white movie effects crossword