Noel Coward, generally associated with David Windsor, Cole Porter, Alexander Woolcott and others of cointreau society, has, it seems, matured to the capability of writing and producing one of the most adult motion pictures over screened. "Brief Encounter," adapted from his own one-act play, "Still Life," is a realistic experience that fulfills all the tenets of tragedy and yet remain simple, restrained and powerful.

The first comparison that thinking American audiences will probably make is between this British film and some of the stupendous offerings of the West Coast celluloidaterias. Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard, described Howard as being "just middle-aged once," are small, quiet, English bourgeoisie who are thrown, by chance, into a tragedy of love from which they will never emerge. Miss Johnson, as a housewife, is forty and looks it. She is not pretty. Her clothes are plain and her hair shows the results of innumerable "permanents" at a local beauty-parlor. Trevor Howard is a doctor, slightly bald, whose suits are unpressed and whose practice is completely unromantic. Both are married, and each has had two children by other plain people. They meet in the railroad station of a small English town and their "Star-cross'd" relationship develops.

Augmenting fine photography, Coward uses the technique of the dream, using the same scene in the beginning objective, and seen in the end through the thoughts of Celia Johnson, finally weakened by her tragedy. The music, consisting only of Rachmaninoff's second Piano Concerto, is apt to become tiring after an hour of repetition.