As its title (quite accidentally) indicates, both an echo of Ecstasy and a forerunner of Brief Encounter. As William K. Everson notes, Graham Greene had the wit to recognize the maturity of this remarkable and virtually unknown British B-movie (the best of the British films by the French director Greville) when he wrote, "The subject is sexual passion, a rarer subject than you would think on the screen, and the treatment is adult; there isn't, thank God, any love in it." Everson adds, "The plot and characters matter far less than mood and detail...Economical in the extreme, it rarely shows it: small sets are cunningly designed and framed to make them look more opulent, and the beautiful camerawork of Ronald Neame reminds us again that it is usually a mistake for first-rate cinematographers to give up that career to become routine directors...Linden Travers, never as big a British star as she might have been, is here quite stunningly photographed, with all the care than von Sternberg used to lavish on Dietrich. (Brief Ecstasy) will prove, in the long run, to be a film you'll remember."