Analysis:

David Lean's third Noël Coward adaptation has become one of the most popular romantic British films of all time, regularly appearing on lists of 'best films'.

The film is a small masterpiece of construction. According to Kevin Brownlow's biography of Lean, it was the director's idea to start the film at the end of the story, and then recount earlier events in flashback before revisiting the first scene, now expanded and made all the more poignant by what the audience knows. Laura herself tells the story, as though to her dull but kindly husband Fred, although he never actually hears her voice-over confessions.

It is with this film that Lean announces himself as a poet of the cinema, using the imagery of shadowy subway passages and platforms lit by sudden bursts of harsh light from passing trains to convey the atmosphere of Alec and Laura's illicit liaison.

Read the full analysis on BFI Screenonline.