Wow! Such a good movie.

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

A Disappointing Continuation

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

For this film, Muriel and Sydney Box received Oscars for the Best Original Screen Play. This is the sixth movie I have seen with Ann Todd. The others were Hitchock's The Paradine Case (1947), David Lean's Madeleine (1950), The Passionate Friends (1949), and Breaking the Sound Barrier (1952), and Alexander Korda's Perfect Strangers (1945). I continue to want to be impressed by her, but expect for her David Lean movies, she continues to fail to win me over. As of now, I see her as a less interesting British version of Joan Fontaine in that they both seem to have played more than their share of overly male-dominated mousy women. That is, while Fountine had her Letter from an Unknown Woman, Rebecca, Suspicion, and Jane Eyre, Todd had her share of similar roles.This movie is about a woman concert pianist, Francesca Cunningham (Ann Todd) who is controlled and dominated by her male guardian, Nicholas (James Mason). Every time she attempts to break away from Nicholas and live a 'normal' life, he is able to bring her back under his control. Though she has an American lover, Peter Gay (Hugh McDermott), and threatens to leave Nicholas to live in Italy with her portrait artist, Maxwell Leyden (Albert Lieven), neither relationship is a complete success. When she is in a car accident with Max, she wakes up to find that her hands are badly bunt which takes her to the point of suicide.For me, the only two things that save this movie at all are the great concert music and the interesting story of how her psychoanalyst, Doctor Larsen (Herbert Lom), is able to bring her back to health again and demonstrate where her true love lies.

The Seventh Veil is directed by Compton Bennett. The film stars Ann Todd, James Mason, Hugh McDermott and Herbert Lom.This film is filled with strong performances, Ann Todd in particular is worthy of great praise. Todd convinces as a teenager and as troubled older woman, this is one of her very best performances.Francesca Cunningham(Ann Todd)tries to commit suicide by jumping into a river, she is rescued and taken to hospital. Francesca has sessions with psychologist Dr. Larson(Herbert Lom)to try and discover why she is suicidal. Larson puts her under hypnosis and learns about key events in her life that have led to her to where she is now.As a teenager Francesca was sent to live with Nicholas(James Mason), a distant relative who raised her. Francesca had a passion for music, Nicholas trains her to become an extremely skilled piano player, he is controlling and doesn't like her having a life of her own.When Francesca grows older she falls in love with outgoing band leader Peter Gay (Hugh McDermott), the pair want to marry but Nicholas forbids it. Nicholas takes her abroad where her piano playing is perfected and she goes on to become a world renowned pianist. Francesca seems to long for something more in her life and becomes very unhappy. Dr. Larson speaks to the men in her life and lets Francesca decide which man she want's to be with.I didn't like the ending, up until this point Nicholas comes across as cold, distant and controlling. Towards the end of the film he does become warmer and gentle but that change comes to late in the film for the ending to be believable.Mason doesn't get much to do apart from look brooding and distant. The film highlights what a good actress Ann Todd was. There's some beautiful piano music to enjoy throughout the film. Worth a watch but the ending doesn't work for me.

One of the most delicious thrills for many British and American moviegoers in 1946 was the unexpected sight of James Mason thwacking down his cane on the fingers of Ann Todd as she played the piano. This one scene is probably better remembered than the movie itself. The Seventh Veil was one of the first British movies to deal with psychiatry; it made a lot of money in both countries; it helped propel Mason to Hollywood; and it undoubtedly is one of the great women's melodramas in movies. Surprisingly, after more than 60 years the movie still holds up reasonably well, thanks to Mason and Todd. Please note that elements of the plot are discussed Women's melodrama? Just hear the names of the two leads...Nicholas and Francesca. If those names don't sound like characters in a steamy Regency romance, what would? But the movie actually is a modern (from the Forties) study of a severely shy young woman's repressed need for love, and her guardian's overbearing need to live his life's dream through her and her talent as a pianist. Francesca's mother had died when she was a child. Her father placed her in a boarding school. When he died, she was 15 and was sent to live with her wealthy guardian in a large London mansion. Francesca was timid, talented at the piano, so unsure of herself at times that she could barely speak. Nicholas, probably 20 years older, was her second cousin. He lived alone in his mansion with only male servants. He was lame, brooding, controlling and a misogynist. One afternoon he learns Francesca can play the piano and slowly entices her to play for him by playing himself. As he listens to her we can see that he is recognizing a rare talent that he most likely, however competent he might be, can never equal. "He was a wonderful teacher," she later says. "He used to say rather bitterly, 'Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.'" He drives her mercilessly for years to train her to excel, and he succeeds. "He never let me out of his sight for seven years," she tells us, "It was seven years of music...of Nicholas turning me into his dream." We learn all this in a series of flashbacks because we first meet Francesca in a hospital after she has attempted to kill herself. She lies mute in bed, seemingly unaware of anything around her. When finally a psychiatrist, Dr. Larsen (Herbert Lom, wearing a scholarly pince- nez), is brought into the case, he slowly encourages her to speak and tell her story. He tells a colleague that the process is much like the removal of the seven veils, with each dropped veil revealing a bit more, and that the removal of the seventh veil will let us know the patient's truest feelings and desires. And so Francesca tells us in flashback how Nicholas drove her to become a gifted, recognized pianist, how he controlled every aspect of her life, how she thought she had fallen in love with two men and how Nicholas had reacted each time. Finally, Dr. Larsen is able to help Francesca through this. At the conclusion, as she walks down the grand staircase in Nicholas' mansion with Dr. Larsen and the three men waiting below, we know that, as Larsen has warned them, Francesca has become a new woman who will go to the man among them whom she loves and trusts. And as she goes down those stairs, smiling and confident, Nicholas knows that the man Larsen described cannot be him. He quietly limps away and closes the door to his study behind him. Care to guess what Francesca does next? The movie still works, despite the now clunky approach to psychiatry, repressed love and inner-most feelings, because of James Mason and Ann Todd. Todd was a cool, finely- sculpted blonde who, at 36, had to convincingly play a young woman between the ages of 15 and about 24. She just about carries it off. She also has to carry the narrative weight of the movie, since all we know is largely from her flashback monologues and her scenes in the film. Mason, however, dark and handsome, dominates the movie. He isn't just glowering, brooding and tormented. There is an element of sadistic insistence in his portrayal of Nicholas that keeps us off balance. If Nicholas had ever reached the point of doing some bodice ripping, there would have been a lot of females in the audience sighing in anticipation.

Ann Harding is a young girl who must take off "The Seventh Veil," referring to the last veil of Salome, in this 1945 psychological drama also starring James Mason and Herbert Lom. Harding plays Francesca, who becomes the ward of Nicholas (Mason), a friend of her father's, when she is a young girl. Learning of her musical talent, Nicholas molds her into a first-class concert pianist, and she launches on a career. All the while, she is completely under his control. When she falls in love with a jazz musician, Nicholas takes her to Paris to study. Once her career is in full bloom and she is of age, she falls in love with an artist and runs away with him. A terrible accident hospitalizes her, and after a suicide attempt, a psychiatrist (Lom) begins to work with her, as she now believes she cannot ever play the piano again.This is a very well-done film with excellent performances. Mason is passive, mysterious and intimidating as Nicholas, a man who also has an edge of violence when pushed too hard. There is a scene where he stands backstage and watches Francesca play the piano; his face softens as he smiles, and the character reveals more of himself. As Francesca, the pretty Harding has the right mix of submission and then passion when she needs it. Lom, ever the chameleon, does a wonderful job as the psychiatrist.The music played by Francesca throughout the film is fantastic as is the somewhat dreary atmosphere in which Francesca lives. The ending is too abrupt but also in a way satisfying. One hopes that both Francesca and Nicholas are on their way to becoming whole people.Highly recommended.