I like Noel Coward, the wit. I like Noel Coward, the play write. I like Noel Coward, the composer and singer, but I loathe Noel Coward the actor.<br /><br />To me this is a man who should have stayed firmly behind the scenes, writing his plays and composing his music and making his profound and hilarious observations. He should never have been allowed in front of a camera.<br /><br />Make no mistake, he is one of the top outstanding talents of the 20th century but the man just couldn't act, and his voice...with it's rolling R's and it's overly round tonal quality...well it could quite easily grate cheese in my opinion.<br /><br />This is one of my least favourite offerings from Coward, as he unconvincingly portrays a psychiatrist embarking on an affair with a much younger woman, made worse by the fact that the much younger woman is an old school friend of his much younger wife.<br /><br />Celia Johnson is as much a joy to watch as ever as Cowards wronged wife. It is her performance that saves this film from abject dullness. I suppose her own little fling in Coward's Brief Encounter four years previously qualified her for this role as she must have raised a few eyebrows playing a such a promiscuous woman and this gave her the chance to win back a few fans and gain some lost sympathy.<br /><br />She was such a wonderful actress and you can see why Noel Coward used her so much in many of his productions.<br /><br />However the rest of the film is drab, badly acted, predictable and on the whole boring to almost arse-clenching level.<br /><br />If its Noel Coward you want then take the time to watch In Which We Serve, Blythe Spirit or This Happy Breed instead. Three Noel Coward treasures. With lovely films like these I suppose we can forgive him for this turkey.<br /><br />I have given this four stars purely for the addition of Miss Johnson, but on the whole I'd avoid this one like the plague.