Trevor Howard: Collection (DVD)

A selection of classic films starring the English actor Trevor Howard. In 'Brief Encounter' (1945), Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) appears to be the very embodiment of a respectable, happily-married British housewife and mother. Equally, the man who comes to her assistance when a passing train blows grit into her eye, Dr Alec Harvey (Howard), enjoys a settled and comfortable life. Neither of the pair are prepared for the emotions the encounter will evoke in them. Unable to forget each other, they begin meeting covertly in the railway cafe. Given that both are married with children, pursuing a romantic relationship seems impossible, but will the power of their love overwhelm all other concerns? In 'The Third Man' (1949), Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), a pulp Western writer, arrives in post-war Vienna expecting to take up a job with his old acquaintance, Harry Lime (Orson Welles). When he is informed that Lime died a week previously in a car accident, Martins is intrigued by inconsistencies in the accounts of the death and decides that he can't leave the city without investigating matters further. As a consequence, he finds himself drawn into a web of intrigue and searching for the elusive 'third man' who was at the scene of Lime's death. When the head of the local military police, Major Calloway (Howard), informs him that Lime was involved in black market drug distribution, the plot thickens even further...The spy thriller 'Odette' (1950), set in 1942 at the height of WWII, tells the true story of Odette Marie Celine Churchill who, after an appeal, sends her holiday photos of the French Coast to the War office. Due to her unique qualifications, she soon finds herself volunteering to join the SOE (Special Operations Executive), and is subsequently sent to France as a secret agent to work alongside the resistance. In 'Outcast of the Islands' (1951), based on the novel by Joseph Conrad, Peter Willems (Howard) is a clerk in a South Seas trading post who gets involved in a smuggling plot via a secret sea route, eventually betraying his employer and destroying himself in the process. Finally, in 'The Heart of the Matter' (1953), based on the novel by Graham Greene, Howard stars as Scobie, an assistant police commissioner posted to Sierra Leone during World War 2. Exploring familiar Greene themes such as religion and work politics, the film co-stars Elizabeth Allan and Maria Schell as the wronged wife and the hard done by mistress.