THE SEVENTH VEIL (1944)

[JackFavell]

That's funny!

[CineMaven]

Attention, ladies: the guy is phobic about women to the extent that one has never entered his elegant domain; he's never gotten over the abandonment by his mother; he loves cats. Any alarm bells going off? Add that he sublimates his sexuality by sadistically dominating the only woman in his life. Great soulmate material, right?

Oh yeah man. The bells are ringing... Unless he's Blofeld, it doesn't bode well for a full-filling relationship especially when you add the abandonment issues. Yeeesh! ( Come to think of it, was Blofeld lucky with the ladies? Or did he just want Bond world domination? )

I loved your camparisons with Mr. Rochester and Waldo, KR. Uhmmm...there was no "saving" Waldo though. Addison DeWitt comes to mind, but he's Eve's albatross.

I love 40's "women's" films. I like Moira's suggestion about films dealing with psychiatry. I like your idea of films built around the theme of classical music. ( Have I publicly thanked you yet for introducing me to "NIGHT SONGS"? Roses are in the mail. ) I'd watch a nite of either of those themes if TCM would just listen to you guys.

I don’t remember reading this thread two years ago. I had the movie on tv this Saturday, and was thinking this was the pianist’s version of “The Red Shoes.” I respect Mason's talent...Ann Todd and her mask-like face, leaves me cold. When I saw Mason crack a cane over Todd’s knuckles and then heard her psychiatrist yelling “Try! TRY!!” I figured this movie was another "veiled" version of “lets-torture-this-poor-woman” picture ( a la “Gaslight” and “Gilda” ) and I was outta there. ( The last human thought I had before I ran was: “Herbert Lom is just the man to stand up to James Mason. He ain’t a scurred o’ him!!” ) But after reading your fine review Brother Rat, and seeing what the good folks had to say back in 2010, I have another notch of "Regret" on my cinema belt, for not sticking it out and watching this movie. Ugh! I hate when I do that. How silly can a Maven be?

And that reminds me, I really must make it an ingrained habit to read Movie Morlocks every day. Click the fotos below.



You know, It’s really a wonder a woman gets ANY break to live a whole authentic life in this world with certain men “loving” her. Their "love" can cost her a career, or her sanity.

Just how many veils did Salome drop?

[JackFavell]

This was definitely one of those movies, Maven where the woman is rather masochistic, but I think the direction was very even, not really glorying in her suffering. While in real life I would never advocate that a woman go back to someone who has smashed her hands, within the structure of the movie, it's set up perfectly and works quite well. I didn't care a hoot about Ann Todd anyway, when I started watching, as I said before she generally leaves me cold, but here, the movie is so engrossing, and her acting is so good that I found myself completely within it's grasp... the kind of movie that sucks you into it's vortex, if you know what I mean. it was just me and the movie, as you said the other day, and I had to find out what really happened within the story. It plays as a bit of a mystery - what really happened between Ann Todd's character, and Peter, the American jazz musician? What will her psyche end up being like? WHat actually happened to Mason's character in the past to make him like this? Who will she end up with? All geared to make a very entertaining film. And the music is done just right, in so many classical films the music is almost a distraction (City for Conquest almost drops the ball during the big finale, but manages to keep it afloat by intercutting to Cagney and Sheridan), or the music is full of itself or grandiose and just plain bad, when people stand and cheer it's almost laughable. This movie had a real feel for the music.

And speaking of Peter the American musician, why oh why are we always portrayed as somewhat smarmy and callow in British films?

Wait, don't answer that. (we really are smarmy and callow):D

[moira finnie]

Two things that I noticed more this time when I saw The Seventh Veil was Mason's pain and some of the Freudian humor in the story.
James Mason was really on a great roll by the time this movie was made, dashing about as the vicious Lord Rohan (The Man In Grey) or corrupt Lord Manderstoke (Fanny By Gaslight), and the merciless highwayman Capt. Jerry Jackson (The Wicked Lady). I know these movies were claptrap, but his skill and the way that these stories tapped into the secret inner life of women in the audience makes them so fascinating.

I thought that the first meeting between Nicholas (James Mason) and Francesca (Ann Todd) was very well acted, naughty and funny. It features her cowering before her new guardian, a second cousin who seems angry to have her intruding on his "bachelor establishment." Spying the very large, furry cat he is petting in his lap, Nicholas asks, "Would you like to stroke him?" Recoiling, Francesca hisses, with a mixture of fear and disgust as she gazes at his lap, "No!... I hate cats! They frighten me." Nicholas is heard saying, "You'll soon get used to them in this house," followed by Francesca looking appalled. Oh, gosh, could this mean...something else?

[youtube][/youtube]

As I watched the troubled stiff played by Mason unwinding over the course of the movie, I realized that Nicolas isn't just a sadist, he's a lonely man who can only express his neediness in his high-handed coldness. At some level, he is a "sleeping prince" who realizes that Francesca (Todd) is the beauty who can release him from his imperious and painful solitude. Since the story is told from the POV of the young woman, the audience only catches glimpses of his fear of intimacy and his controlling nature as chinks in the armor of his impenetrable, enigmatic shell, with a few hints of his longing revealed only fitfully as Francesca's perception of him changes over time.

Did you notice that the only times Nicholas smiled were when he watched his ward perform in public? Even then he only allowed himself that expression of enjoyment when she could not see him and the pleasure he took in her artistry overcame his inhibition. When she makes her debut, fraught with tension because of her mentor's coldness, the constant reminders of how to behave on stage and her ditzy former schoolmate's barging into her dressing room, blithely unaware of her friend's feelings, though Mason's disapproving scowl seems to indicate that he would grill his ward later about this woman, and that he is at least vaguely aware of her pain. Too bad his communication skills sure needed work.

**Spoiler Alert**
Even though she finally chooses to be with Mason, I can't help picturing the couple growing older together, but still staying a bit clueless about what the other wants and needs...and then, there was the subject of...cats.

I guess we are supposed to believe that their Byronic passion will carry them through life, living on a higher plane than the philistines who don't play Rachmaninoff or peer endlessly at art catalogues whilst the other seethes in a quiet frenzy in the corner, torn between adoring rapture and brooding resentment of the other. I can't help picturing the twosome rattling around their old mansion together, more neurotic than ever, building up to the breaking point every few weeks in stony silence over something trivial (say, Francesca going out for a walk without Nicholas)


Recently, I have been corresponding with a writer by the name of Harvey Chartrand, who wrote an excellent interview with character actor Herbert Lom in Filmfax Magazine in the Dec 2001-Jan 2002 issue entitled "Herbert Lom: The Life and Times of a Mysterious Pink Phantom." I thought that others might enjoy these relevant quotes about the compelling actor:

Lom’s first screen appearance was in a Czech picture called Zena pod Krizem (1937), of which little is known, other than the name of its director – the now forgotten Vladimir Slavinsky. Lom left for Great Britain in 1939, seeking refuge from the Nazi threat, but also anticipating greater acting opportunities there.

While studying Art History at Cambridge University, Lom was offered work as a translator and newsreader by the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Czech and German Radio Service. “For my parents in Prague, this was a very reassuring decision, for in this way, they had news from their son every evening!,” he recalls.

Lom’s exotic features led to his frequently being cast as a ‘foreign’ villain. His breakthrough role came in 1945, when the award-winning husband-and-wife screenwriting team of Sydney and Muriel Box approached him to play the Mittël-European psychiatrist in The Seventh Veil, directed by Compton Bennett. The extraordinary worldwide success of this film – in which Lom more than held his own against stars James Mason and Ann Todd – led to steady work for the next 47 years.

Filmfax: In The Seventh Veil (1946), you played a psychiatrist who uses hypnosis to enable concert pianist Ann Todd to regain her sanity. You are first-rate in one of the key British films of the 1940s.

Herbert Lom: I thought I was much too young for the part! They had to put white in my hair and blue under my eyes, but it was fun doing The Seventh Veil. It was an exceptional success, because it combined psychiatry with music. I had a very good reception for an unknown guy -- in fact, one or two critics wrote that I wasn’t an actor but a real-life psychiatrist who was borrowed from Harley Street (London’s Medical Row), which I found was quite a compliment.

I had to hypnotize Ann Todd, so I learned from a real hypnotist how to do it. While we were shooting, in the middle of the scene, I say, “Relax. Relax. Go to sleep.” Suddenly, we heard snoring! It was the clapper boy! He was sitting there next to the camera watching the scene being filmed. I had succeeded in putting him to sleep! (laughter)

Filmfax: That is amazing! How did you land this leading man role, after playing supporting roles since 1940?

HL: I didn’t really consider it a leading role. I suppose it was a bit more important than the others. I hadn’t made many films until then. The war was on and I was working as a newsreader at BBC Radio (in the Czech and German service).