Fred's Suspicions


I'm a huge fan of Brief Encounter, and I think I've watched it enough times to know every scene intimately. However, the last time I saw it, I noticed a moment early in the film where Fred appears to be very aware that Laura is hiding a guilty secret.

The scene I mean is where Laura turns on the radio and tunes in to Rachmaninoff. When she goes to sit down, we can see Fred in the distance studying the crossword. A fraction of a second before the camera cuts to a close-up of Laura about to 'confess,' you can see Fred raise his eyes to look at Laura - and he appears to give her a hugely suspicious glare.

I've always interpreted Fred as being totally oblivious to Laura's secret until the final scene, but that moment has got me scratching my head. Apart from that very brief glare, there's nothing to suggest Fred had any suspicions whatsoever.

As this is the first time I've noticed this 'glare' of Fred's in about ten viewings, I wonder whether it was actually intended to be noticed by the viewer?

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That's interesting - I'll have to keep an eye out for it next time I watch - as the film's real-time, in the sense that it takes place as she is sitting in the chair remembering it all over maybe an hour or two, its no stretch of the imagination that he knew already. And I remember the last time I watched it knowing that, watching his reactions when she almost seems impelled to confess when they are sitting by the fire and she suggests meeting Alex and he feigns "who" - in short, it is very subtle film, and my reaction at the end of the film was that he knew all along.

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I am just now watching Brief Encounter, I have it on our PVR (taped from TCM last March, no one deletes one of mama's favorite movies!) and you are correct Whostercogburn, Fred is wearing a raised eyebrow isn't he? I too think he knew almost from the beginning, or at least suspected something might be happening. I am almost positive by the end of the film!

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That's an interesting observation, since I thought of Fred as being pretty ignorant of just about everything about his wife. Even at the end when he begins to pay attention to her, I still interpreted him as being pretty clueless, and I think that the ending was pretty ambiguous as to whether or not their marriage was "rekindled" afterwards.

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