The Passionate Friends

Four years after creating Brief Encounter, one of the most powerful cinematic portrayals of extramarital love, Lean returned to a similar. Adapted from the eponymous novel by H.G. Wells, this melodrama is narrated in flashbacks by Mary Justin (Ann Todd). Years ago, she gave up on her love affair with her childhood friend, the biologist Steven (Trevor Howard), in favor of a comfortable but monotonous marriage with the much older banker Howard (Claude Rains). When Mary unexpectedly runs into Steven again nine years later during a vacation in the Swiss Alps, she is forced to confront her feelings for the man she still loves.