Why was Alec's friend mad?

As someone who is old fashioned and who understands the morality and way of life of the 1940s rather well, I simply see the friends 'anger' as common sense.
It is how I would react, it is disappointment in a friend, disgust, etc.
I would react like that if I simply heard one of my friends was having an affair, let alone if he wanted to use my apartment for it.
Civilised decent people do not have affairs, so if your friend does, you are disappointed and upset.
I don't see any kind of gay subtext, even if there was, it has little to do with why he was angry.
How much motivation does one need to be mad with a friend behaving in such a manner?

I just watched BRIEF ENCOUNTER again for the first time (not including the Hallmark remake) in forty years. Maybe I'm delusional, but I recall a scene at the hospital not from Ms. Jesson's POV but from Dr. Harvey's when Dr. Lynn offers Alec the key and explains why. I believe Stephen even went as so far as to suggest Alec entertain a lady friend if he wished, but it seemed a code for encouraging homosexual behavior and perhaps Stephen's opportunity to meet new men as well through Alec. Later I read a film critique which substantiated this interpretation.

I also vividly remember Trevor Howard being on a talk show in the '70s reacting to the usual flattery about this film in regard to its scripting. He himself pointed out how he felt Dr. Lynn's change in behavior completely belied the original offer to use the flat; Howard said he saw that as the film's sole flaw.
I sincerely doubt I hallucinated both the film sequence and the interview.

1. As mentioned elsewhere, Stephen would have had a right to be perfectly outraged that Alec had failed in his role of filling in for him at the hospital. Not just once, but 6 or 7 times I think. But we don't know for sure if he ever found out about that. My guess is that someone at the hospital would be sure to tell him sooner or later.


2. Stephen presumably still needs a person to fill in for him if he intends to take Thursdays off in future, so we are left wondering what will happen to that little arrangement. Except that Alec is leaving England anyway.

3. I think that Stephen is probably meant to be gay. Alec probably isn't overtly, but there may be some "frisson" between them, which has probably never come to anything.


4. Stephen is not Noel Coward. Noel Coward was the station announcer! (Yes, listen carefully next time you see it. I discovered this on a visit to Carnforth Station. They have a museum and heritage centre, and a refreshment room done out like the one in the film, although those scenes were not actually filmed on the station, but in studio mock-ups at Denham Studios.
(OK, I know the comment about Stephen being NC was not meant literally).



5. Being British myself, I wish to counter those comments which emphasise the supposed respectability of the British upper-middle classes of that era.

First, this film may have been set in the late 1930s (I have seen 1939 suggested), but it was actually made in 1945. If nothing else, the war had probably begun to alter radically the supposed moral standards of pre-war years. People didn't know how long they were going to be alive, and were probably more likely to take a risk and enjoy their pleasures today and not worry about tomorrow.

But even back in the 1930s, I don't think the British Upper-Middle-Classes were so very "moral". They may have had a veneer of respectability, but that's another thing. You only have to read the novels of Evelyn Waugh to see how much marital infidelity there was. In fact, these people could probably get away with it far more easily than lower class people, since they had the resources. For example they could afford to take hotel rooms, or carry on affairs under the covers of large weekend house parties, etc.

One would have to be discreet, of course, but that was something they were very good at.

I think Stephen was obviously a homosexual and that this was intended to be obvious without being express.

As for the affair between them, I think Lean intended the audience to draw its own conclusions. You can't really be sure, but I tend to think that there is no way Stephen would be so "disappointed" by this silly fling, even if it was in his bachelor pad.

People back in the 40s, on both sides of the pond, may have acted very prim and proper, but they were only keeping up appearances. Infidelity was as rampant then as it is now. Stephen, being a presumably non-monogamous homosexual in a time where this was still extremely taboo, could not possibly have been outraged by the idea that his friend was being promiscuous behind his wife's back. He even said he was a man of the world and that no explanations were necessary.

So then, what disappointed Stephen so? Why that look on Alec's face and that tone in his voice when he says "You're really angry, aren't you?"

In my estimation, there is, at the very least, a crush which both men are aware of and, perhaps, a sexual history.

In any case, I think it's quite naive to suggest that this is all merely some trite expression of moral indignation on the part of Stephen. He's no angel himself, by the standards of the era, so he has no lesson to give Alec on sexual morality.

I watched again and I saw no indication of homosexuality. If he knew Alec was married and also slept with men, why would he seem disappointed that he had hidden depths after finding the scarf?
Then Alec says he's 'sorry because the situation must seem vulgar to him, actually it isn't in the least'.

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Because he was offended by his infidelity. It fits perfectly with the morals at the time. Simple as that.