PASSIONATE ENCOUNTERS:
THE CINEMA OF DAVID LEAN

Availability: June/July/August 2008

A BFI and Park Circus Touring Programme

To mark David Lean's centenary this year, the David Lean Foundation has generously funded the BFI National Archive, working with Granada International and Studio Canal, to restore a number of Lean's films, all made in Britain in the 1940s and early 50s.

For critic David Thomson, the films of this period constitute Lean's greatest achievement: 'They are lively, stirring, and an inspiration – they make you want to go out and make movies, they are so in love with the screen's power.'

This UK-wide celebration of David Lean will centre around a special re-issue of The Passionate Friends (re-released 6 June), an absorbing love story and fascinating companion piece to Brief Encounter.

The following eight titles, restored to their original splendour, will be made available by the BFI and Park Circus on 35mm and HD digital format.

All titles should be booked through the BFI. Please email george.watson@bfi.org.uk or phone 020 7957 8983. Promotional materials for this touring programme will be available for cinemas from mid-May.

IN WHICH WE SERVE With John Mills, Bernard Miles, Celia Johnson, Richard Attenborough. UK / 1942 / b&w / 114 mins / Park Circus Lean shared the directing credit with Noël Coward, who wrote and starred in this tense and moving account of life on board a wartime destroyer. Although based on the experiences of Louis Mountbatten, this is a state-of-the-nation film with social divisions on shore faithfully mirrored aboard ship. Lean arranged all the camera set-ups and directed Coward in his scenes in front of the camera.

THIS HAPPY BREED With Robert Newton, Celia Johnson, John Mills, Kay Walsh, Stanley Holloway. UK / 1944 / Technicolor / 110 mins / Park Circus Noël Coward was again the source for this story of a London lower middle-class suburban family in the inter-war years from 1919 to 1939. The finely and wittily observed family feuds unfold against a panorama of public events ranging from the General Strike of 1926 to the outbreak of war itself. Beautifully acted by an ensemble cast and shot in Technicolor, the film was a huge contemporary hit and has lost little of its appeal.

BLITHE SPIRIT With Constance Cummings, Kay Hammond, Margaret Rutherford. UK / 1945 / Technicolor / 95 mins / Park Circus David Lean's first comedy, again scripted by Noël Coward from his Broadway hit, stars Rex Harrison as a successful and cheerfully cynical novelist whose marital bliss is interrupted by the mischievous ghost of his first wife, visible to him but invisible to everyone else. The simple but effective special effects, all the more impressive in Technicolor, won an Oscar.

BRIEF ENCOUNTER With Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard. UK / 1945 / b&w / 86 mins / Park Circus David Lean's international reputation was established with this study of unfulfilled passion and guilt – themes that were to recur in his later work. Critically debated, mocked, referenced and remade, this account of an unconsummated affair between a middle-class housewife and a doctor, forced to meet at a railway station, retains a tight emotional grip on any contemporary audience.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS With John Mills, Valerie Hobson, Bernard Miles, Alec Guinness. UK / 1946 / b&w / 118 mins / BFI Undoubtedly one of the finest Dickens adaptations, the film is studded with memorable set-pieces, from young Pip's hair-raising encounter with Magwitch in the graveyard to the eerie Gothic fantasy world of Miss Havisham. The Oscar-winning team of cinematographer Guy Green and production designer John Bryan bring Dickens' settings to vivid, indelible life..

OLIVER TWIST With Robert Newton, John Howard Davies, Kay Walsh. UK / 1948 / b&w / 115 mins / BFI Dickens' extravagant vision of Victorian London is perfectly balanced by superb performances and Lean's fierce grip on the sprawling narrative. Guy Green and John Bryan lend an Expressionist look to Fagin's hellish underworld and Alec Guinness, in his second major role, gives a finely judged theatrical – if controversial – depiction of Fagin himself. Lean was always eager to open a film without dialogue and here he excels himself with a tour de force sequence of Oliver's pregnant mother battling against a storm.

THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS - NEW RELEASE FROM THE BFI With Ann Todd, Trevor Howard, Claude Rains. UK / 1948 / b&w / 91 mins / Cert PG / BFI This absorbing love story is a fascinating companion piece to Brief Encounter and has been hailed by critic David Thomson as – of all Lean's works – 'the film most deserving rediscovery'. Mary (Ann Todd) has chosen a comfortable secure life with her rich banker husband (Claude Rains) over romantic passion with her first love Steven (Trevor Howard). Turmoil ensues when Steven suddenly reappears in her life. With its subtle performances, nuanced direction and beautiful cinematography, The Passionate Friends, adapted from a story by H G Wells, is a triumph of visual storytelling from a master of the art.

MADELEINE With Leslie Banks, Elizabeth Sellars, Ivan Desny. UK / 1949 / 114 mins / BFI In this period drama, set in Victorian Glasgow and based on a true story, Lean exploits the ambiguous and enigmatic screen presence of Ann Todd. Here she plays a young woman who, rebelling against her patriarchal father, falls for a penniless but exploitative French aristocrat who later dies of arsenic poisoning. Madeleine is anything but a victim, daring to expose her sexuality. Guy Green's deep focus photography owes much to CITIZEN KANE.

The following titles, restored by the BFI and Studio Canal, will be available on 35mm only from Optimum Releasing.

For booking queries, please contact adam@optimumreleasing.com or phone 020 7637 5403.

THE SOUND BARRIER With Ralph Richardson, Ann Todd, Nigel Patrick. UK / 1952 / b&w / 116 mins / Optimum The human cost of scientific progress underlies this story of an aircraft manufacturer whose obsession for perfection leads him into near madness and brings his family suffering – a tendency shared by Lean himself. The script by Terence Rattigan delivers the drama, but the exhilarating aerial footage and the score by Malcolm Arnold are what lodge in the memory.

HOBSON'S CHOICE With John Mills, Brenda de Banzie, Prunella Scales. UK / 1953 / b&w / 107 mins / Optimum Charles Laughton delivers a bravura performance as a self-important Lancashire bootmaker who attempts to dictate his daughter's choice of husband, only to find that she marries his downtrodden and simple-minded employee and starts a rival business. Set in the 1890s, this working class comedy by Harold Brighouse was first staged in 1916 but is here given a fresh breath of cinematic life thanks to luminous cinematography by Jack Hildyard.