hyped garbage

Awesome Movie

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The wonderful Agnes Moorehead is Juliana Borderau, the 105 year old resident of a Venice, Italy villa whose old love letters from a famous poet have become an obsession for American Lewis Venable (Robert Cummings). Venable arrives in Venice, rents a room from Juliana and her niece Tina (Susan Hayward) and starts his own investigation to the location of the mysterious letters and the mystery surrounding Tina's obsession with Juliana's past. What he finds out is as Gothic as "Great Expectations" and "Jane Eyre". Moorehead is unrecognizable (all except her voice, altered to sound like that of an extremely old lady), and her hold on Hayward's Tina is straight out of "Great Expectation's" Miss Havisham. Based on a Henry James story, "The Aspern Papers", "The Lost Moment" has moments of serene romance, moody photography and some genuine chills, but is ultimately a re-tread of stories we've seen many times before. Cummings would not have been my first choice to play such a part, but Hayward is convincing as she brings all of the multiple elements of Tina to life. Moorehead's role is more of a gimmick than a characterization, but she brings more to it than a less capable actress could have.

Actor Martin Gabel's first (and only) directorial effort is rich with atmosphere and Gothic artiness. Based loosely on the Henry James novel, "The Aspern Papers," the film follows the efforts of an ambitious publisher, Lewis Venable (Robert Cummings) to locate the lost love letters of an 18th century poet named Jeffrey Ashton. He believes the letters to be in the possession of Ashton's aged former lover, Juliana Bordereau(Agnes Moorehead).Under the pretense of being a writer in search of inspiration, he manages to rent a room in the ghostly Bordereau home in Venice, much to the dislike of a mysterious young woman (Susan Hayward) who is said to be Juliana's niece, Tina. Things become complicated when, one night, he is drawn by strange music to the opposite side of the house. There, he finds Tina at the piano. She believes she is Juliana and that Lewis is her lover, Jeffrey Ashton, taking the film in a somewhat otherworldly direction.Those who make a habit of reading between the lines may suggest that Cummings' protagonist has opened an esoteric door to the past as he enters the room, finding what is perhaps a young Juliana in a dream-like state.It's easy to say that Susan Hayward is excellent in this film, if for no other reason than the fact that her beauty is astounding. In addition, the camera angles and lighting pay immense flattery. Though, in fairness, her performance is more than adequate and the stark contrast between the character's two personalities is quite real.Also worth a mention is Agnes Moorehead's eerie portrayal of the century-old lady of the house who never sleeps, and Daniele Amfitheatrof's moody, yet seemly musical score."The Lost Moment" deserves more than just a look.

This little film is bursting with atmosphere, brooding, wistful, corrupt, overflowing with decay, betrayal and regret. A studio better known for its westerns and horror movies is here responsible for a major gem of delicacy and suggestion.What makes all this remarkable is that the screenplay is a classic example of Hollywood's idiotic dumbing-down of a major work of fiction, Henry James's novella "The Aspern Papers" (based in turn on the life of Lord Byron). To compare James's brief story with the film is so sad it's almost painful, yet the movie survives and succeeds through sensitive style and sturdy professionalism.The studio sets are evocative of a time before Venice became an international theme park, and the director's experience in radio drama provides a more finely-judged soundtrack than was the norm. If your nerve-endings are not already terminally blunted through today's cinematic overkill, this film will prove richly rewarding.

This turned up on tv and, having recently seen another James adaptation, The Innocents, I thought I'd take a look. This is quite a sweet little film, despite its sinister content and ghostly images of Venice. Cummings, Hayward and Moorehead are all excellent. "Venice" looks as good as the real thing, and the film has that watchable quality which sits with the very best of the 40s. One I'll certainly go back to.