Editing David Lean (section)

===British films===
His first work as a director was in collaboration with [[Noël Coward]] on ''[[In Which We Serve]]'' (1942), and he later adapted several of Coward's plays into successful films. These films are ''[[This Happy Breed (film)|This Happy Breed]]'' (1944), ''[[Blithe Spirit (1945 film)|Blithe Spirit]]'' (1945) and ''[[Brief Encounter]]'' (1945) with [[Celia Johnson]] and [[Trevor Howard]] as quietly understated clandestine lovers, torn between their unpredictable passion and their respective orderly middle-class marriages in suburban England. The film shared Grand Prix honors at the 1946 Cannes film festival and garnered Lean his first Academy nominations for directing and screen adaptation, and Celia Johnson a nomination for Best Actress. It has since become a classic, one of the most highly regarded British films.

Two celebrated [[Charles Dickens]] adaptations followed – ''[[Great Expectations (1946 film)|Great Expectations]]'' (1946) and ''[[Oliver Twist (1948 film)|Oliver Twist]]'' (1948). [[David Shipman (writer)|David Shipman]] wrote in ''The Story of Cinema: Volume Two'' (1984): "Of the other Dickens films, only Cukor's ''David Copperfield'' approaches the excellence of this pair, partly because his casting, too, was near perfect".{{sfn|Shipman|1984|p=775}} These two films were the first directed by Lean to star [[Alec Guinness]], whom Lean considered his "good luck charm". The actor's portrayal of Fagin was controversial at the time. The first screening in Berlin during February 1949 offended the surviving Jewish community and led to a riot. It caused problems too in New York, and after private screenings, was condemned by the [[Anti-Defamation League]] and the American Board of Rabbis. "To our surprise it was accused of being anti-Semitic", Lean wrote. "We made Fagin an outsize and, we hoped, an amusing Jewish villain."<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=bKtQTBGaB3wC&pg=PA136 ''Beyond the Epic: The Life and Films of David Lean''], University Press of Kentucky, 2006, pp.135–36</ref> The terms of the [[Motion Picture Production Code|production code]] meant that the film's release in the United States was delayed until July 1951 after cuts amounting to eight minutes.{{sfn|Phillips|2006|p=139}}

The next film directed by Lean was ''[[The Passionate Friends (1949 film)|The Passionate Friends]]'' (1949), an atypical Lean film, but one which marked his first occasion to work with [[Claude Rains]], who played the husband of a woman ([[Ann Todd]]) torn between him and an old flame (Howard). ''The Passionate Friends'' was the first of three films to feature the actress Ann Todd, who became his third wife. ''[[Madeleine (1950 film)|Madeleine]]'' (1950), set in Victorian-era Glasgow is about an 1857 ''[[cause célèbre]]'' with Todd's lead character accused of murdering a former lover. "Once more", writes film critic [[David Thomson (film critic)|David Thomson]] "Lean settles on the pressing need for propriety, but not before the film has put its characters and the audience through a wringer of contradictory feelings."<ref>{{cite news|last=Thomson|first=David|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/may/10/fiction1|title=Unhealed wounds|date=10 May 2008|work=The Guardian|access-date=31 December 2015|archive-date=7 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171207064912/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/may/10/fiction1|url-status=live}}</ref> The last of the films with Todd, ''[[The Sound Barrier]]'' (1952), has a screenplay by the playwright [[Terence Rattigan]] and was the first of his three films for [[Alexander Korda|Sir Alexander Korda]]'s [[London Films]]. ''[[Hobson's Choice (1954 film)|Hobson's Choice]]'' (1954), with [[Charles Laughton]] in the lead, was based on the play by [[Harold Brighouse]].