Whereby the influence on set or in the theatre watching someone else’s film, inspires another…
Brief Encounter (1945) is an English film about two married strangers, Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) and Dr. Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard) who meet accidentally at a train station. To their own astonishment, and guilt, they fall in love. But, this is immediate-post-WWII England, and their affair, though intense, is very buttoned-down, very chaste. And completely unforgettable! It is one of the most romantic films ever made. And, what was then not in the English nature to display, is expressed throughout the film by the use of Rachmaninov’s passionate Piano Concerto No. 2. Eventually, Laura and Alec meet at a ‘flat’ belonging to one of his friends who’s suppose to be somewhere else for the night. But the friend unexpectedly shows up and is outraged at Alec for attempting to use his apartment for a tryst.
It was this moment which struck screenwriter/director Billy Wilder when he saw the film. He scribbled down a question in his notebook: ‘What about the poor schnook who has to crawl into the still-warm bed of the lovers?’
Fifteen years later Wilder gave us the ‘poor schnook’ in The Apartment (1960). His name was C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) and he wasn’t outraged at all. Just the opposite, C.C. cooperated with his bosses who wanted to use his apartment for hook-ups. He figured it was his way to advance up the corporate ladder – and it worked. That is until C.C. fell for the big boss’s (Fred MacMurray), mistress, Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine). And then, it broke his heart. But where Brief Encounter is unabashedly romantic, with characters trying to be noble, The Apartment is cynical, with most characters thinking of no one but themselves – in other words, it is a bit ‘Wilder.’
The last line of Brief Encounter, spoken by Laura’s husband and which brings her to tears: “Thank you for coming back to me.” The last line of The Apartment, spoken by Fran during a card game after C.C.’s declared his love for her: “Shut up and deal.”
So much for American romance.
Passionate and noble, Brief Encounter (1945) speaks to the better angels of our nature. Illustrating, perhaps, what we’d like to experience and how we’d like to imagine that we, too, would react.
