Brief Ecstasy

source: Dangerous Secrets

Moviecut—Dangerous Secrets

Brief Ecstasy

One night a woman (Linden Travers) has a brief affair with a charmer she meets (Hugh Williams). The man is posted to India the next day. He writes to her, but she never receives the letter and there is no further communication between the pair. She ends up marrying her older university professor (Paul Lukas). When the man returns to England he gets to know the professor and invited over he realises who he is married to. He is still in love with her. Will they resume their affair? A romantic melodrama with a surprising good deal going on within it's 72 minute running time. Shot at Ealing Studios by Phoenix Films, it was released in the United States as DANGEROUS SECRETS and was massively cut to the point any release was pointless. Travers is an interesting actress with a memorable face who sadly didn't do much.

Edmond T Greville left his native France to direct movies in England where actors were more professional.That's what he claimed.At the time,however,French cinema was at the height of its power (Carné,Renoir,Duvivier,Pagnol,Guitry,Grémillon,Christian-Jaque and more). And after producing a turkey about a female spy during WW1,Greville made another dud about the eternal story of the love triangle . Woman meets a handsome young man but she marries a scientist since the hunk had to fly to India in order to.... (I have already forgotten the reason why,and however I saw the movie last Monday).And the hubby is of course a greybeard who could be his wife's father.And of course ,he has a housekeeper,secretly in love with him,and jealous of her new mistress. Then the former lover comes back....

Linden Travers has a brief, passionate affair with Hugh Williams; then he tells her he's off to India. She goes back to school under Paul Lukas, then marries him. She is tiring of the domestic routine, when up pops Lukas' old friend, Hugh Williams. The copy looked at turned out to be missing the last nine minutes -- do you hear my teeth grinding? -- but it's another of those tearjerkers which tries to make the situation the fault of no one; it's (sigh) human nature. The performances are fine; Miss Travers, whose best known role is in Hitchcock's THE LADY VANISHES, relies mostly on her serene beauty, but she's very good in a scene where she becomes incoherently angry. Lukas is playing his understanding older gentleman role, his typical casting in English-language film. It's not my meat, but seems to be ably handled.