Re: THE SEVENTH VEIL (1944)
Posted: August 13th, 2012, 5:21 pm
That's funny!
https://www.silverscreenoasis.com/oasis3/
https://www.silverscreenoasis.com/oasis3/viewtopic.php?t=4512
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? )[u][color=#4000BF]kingrat[/color][/u] wrote: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?
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).