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A married American lady played by Jennifer Jones travels through Rome and falls in love with an Italian gentleman, played by Montgomery Clift. She decides to end this ‘adventure’ and to return to her husband back in the States. The day before, following the same situation, she gets off of the train at the last possible moment, telling the man that she will take the train the following morning. This means that they spend the evening in the station together.

This is the final scene of the film. She’s shown in two long tracking shots. In the first they are seen running the length of the platform to make it to the train that will pull them away from each other. In the second shot, after falling from the moving train, the man travels the length of the platform in the other direction right up until the word ‘End’ appears. This sequence sees the two characters trying to stay together, with one leaving on the train and the other staying on the platform. The man gets up onto the train, speaking with the woman in the corridor until it starts to leave the station. We see the station passing the window faster and faster and we feel the dangerous situation mounting to a point where he won’t be able to leave the train, but at the last moment he leaps from the train and lands heavily on the ground. When he picks himself up we see the train pulling away in a classic ‘train leaving the station’ shot as it heads off into the night.