The Seventh Veil

source: The Seventh Veil

This utterly enjoyable and utterly daft film tells the tale of a young suicidal pianist. As she slowly confides in her psychiatrist, she begins to understand what she needs to make herself whole and able to play the piano again--basically the love of a man. Which man--her domineering guardian uncle, her musician boyfriend, or the doctor--is only revealed once the last veil has been lifted.

A huge hit in the 1940's, (it was one of the few British films of its period to cross-over to the American market where it won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay). It has everything; classical music, cod psychology and a cad of a hero-*-villain, (James Mason, marvelous), who treats the heroine abominably and who get to utter the immortal line, 'If you won't play for me, you won't play for anyone else ever again' before attempting to slam the piano-lid on her hands. It's actually quite high-minded tosh and as the girl on the receiving end of Mr Mason's cane, (he's lame with it), Ann Todd hasn't just got alabaster hands but an alabaster face as well. (It's as expressionless as Garbo's to whom she bears a striking resemblance). It's a terrible performance but it's no more than the film deserves. Still, in its trashy, silly way it's hugely enjoyable.

James Mason dressed to the nines sitting in a hideous high back chair chain smoking and brow beating his pathetic second cousin to play until he turn her into a concert pianist then whisks her off to Europe against her will to endlessly play then she comes back to London and then she is depressed and then she plays some more and then she is still depressed and then she has her portrait painted but gets in a car crash and is paranoid her hands are destroyed but they aren't so they cart her off to the nut house and a psychiatrist opens her up with hypos, hypnosis, records and suddenly she is cured and she loves her cousin who has been mean to her and never makes her smile. This poor thing is a poster child for the psychotic, neurotic, paranoid, weak, sniveling and morose. I kept waiting for a plot and wanted to hit the stop button so many times, but kept in there hoping one would develop. The whole thing is a sloppy melodrama and all gussied up to look intellectual. Its rubbish. I want the wasted time watching this clap trap back.

Yesterday I had the chance to watch, for the second time,"The Seventh Veil". I consider this film a good example of what Richard Attenborough described as "the unbearable theatricality" of the English films produced up to end of the 40's (with a few honourable exceptions).James Mason's wonderful performance as a brutal "Pygmalion" is the redeeming feature of the film. As for Ann Todd, a pretty wooden doll, her performance can be judged by the awful scene at the beginning of the film where she is caned by the headmaster of the school. By the way, and this is not her fault, she is playing Francesca at the age of fourteen! Then, by a simple change of hairstyle she becomes twenty-one. The rest is history... The other two characters involved with Francesca: Peter Gay (the band leader) and Maxwell Leyden (the painter) never become fully developed to justify their impact in the life of Francesca, it also must be said that they share Francesca's lack of warmth. Look carefully at the scene where Francesca, leaving the Royal Albert Hall after a successful performance, goes in search of Peter. When she finally finds him (and we must not forget that they were deeply in love and they have not seen each other for seven years!) Peter's reaction is that of a man who saw her last week. Herbert Lom's performance is understated, as the role demands, but very good. It is a pity that an actor like him was typecasted to play usually evil foreigners ( look at the pathetic Chinese merchant he plays in "Tiara Tahiti" (1962) where, by the way, he acts alongside James Mason and John Mills, both giving terrific performances) Regarding Rosabel's comments I do not understand how she/he got this idea of "the German painter" . His name is Maxwell Leyden and speaks an impeccable English. Herbert Lom's character is the only "foreigner"in the film (if we do not leave behind Peter Gay, who is American) but, as his surname suggests, he is Scandinavian (Larsen and Larsson are very common surnames in Denmark and Sweden) For those who admire James Mason I would recommend the biography written by Sheridan Morley "Odd Man Out" (London 1989)

The film begins with a compelling scene in which the main character, concert pianist Francesca Cunningham, tries to take her own life. She is rescued and undergoes a psychological assessment from Dr. Larsen, who uses hypnosis to overcome her "seven veils" of inhibition and find out what drove her to that state. It's a promising introduction and sets the scene for what one might expect to be some heavy psychological thriller. Unfortunately however, once Dr. Larson begins prodding around in her subconscious, we realise that there isn't a whole lot there. Francesca retells the story of her life, from when at the age of fourteen, she was caned by her headmistress, to when she was sent to live with her "uncle" Nicholas, an abusive and domineering guardian who forced her to practice the piano for four or more hours a day. She tells Dr. Larsen the whole story of how she became a concert pianist and how it lead to her eventual breakdown, but her story is far less tragic than one imagined at the beginning of the film - the only real burden in her life being Nicholas. Her misery therefore seems exaggerated, and when she collapses after her concert debut, it seems like nothing more than a symbolic depiction of some unexplained, deep-seated torment. Therefore the story of her breakdown is wholly unsatisfying, although it is interesting nevertheless, but not the heavy psychological thriller the opening scenes promised. Dr. Larsen's assessment of Francesca is absurd, and his suggested remedy even more so. From that point, the film runs out steam and eventually becomes boring. Dr. Larsen has announced his remedy and one knows that all there is left to do is wait for it to work. Unfortunately there is a whole lot of nothing in particular to sit through until it finally does work, with only one question left hanging in the meantime - will Francesca choose to be with Peter or Max? It's not a particularly compelling question either, since both characters are hardly developed. The film attempts to persuade us to favour one of the candidates through a short scene in which the other candidate acts uncharacteristically abusive towards Dr. Larsen, but apart from this there is nothing to indicate who is more deserving of Francesca's hand in marriage, so for me the outcome hardly mattered. Ann Todd's performance is nothing special, and this film is hardly Mason's finest hour either. To me, he lacked the austerity the character needed to be sufficiently threatening. Herbert Lom is good, but the bespectacled, accented Freudian psychiatrist he plays seemed a bit of a cliche. There is some nice music, including the second Rachmaninov and the Grieg piano concertos, but the first half of the film is only average and the second half is dead boring.

"The Seventh Veil" is about a concert pianist (Ann Todd)who is torn between three lovers, one being her wicked guardian Nicolas (James Mason).She is unable to play because she does not know who she loves, but is helped by psychiatrist Dr Larsen (Herbert Lom).This film is cast with wonderful actors and has an original storyline which makes it enjoyable to watch.I would definitely recommend it.

This movie could have been a lot better. A psychological thriller about a woman driven to attempt suicide as a result of her twisted relationship with her godfather is interesting. For that it does earn a score of 6. So, it had many good features but was occasionally marred by a script that seemed too full of clichés and goofy dialog. In fact, the dialog is the weakest aspect of the film. My wife is a best-selling romance writer and she found herself laughing repeatedly during some of the love scenes because the characters sounded like they were written for a cheap pulp novel. As far as clichés go, I found that I was able to predict several scenes (particularly the end of the film which seemed ripped right out of the story Pygmalion). Ultimately, the writers took novel ideas and pumped them full of trite old clichés. Additionally, having Ann Todd play a 17 year-old when she clearly looked to be about 35 was a mistake. It just looked silly. James Mason was too good an actor to saddle him with these script problems. Fortunately, for him, he went on to do better films.

British films were beginning to attract more attention from American audiences by the time THE SEVENTH VEIL appeared on U.S. screens, and audiences took to JAMES MASON as the overly possessive guardian of ANN TODD, even though the character he played had some very unpleasant traits--such as using his cane on the woman's fingers when a burst of temper had him out of control. It's the odd love/hate relationship between Mason and Todd that carries the film. Unfortunately, it carries it into the realm of theatricality when the relationship is shown at its most troubled stages. The film begins with the young woman attempting suicide from a bridge, and then the film becomes a study in psychological terms about the reason for her aversion to the piano with flashbacks serving as the means to unravel the cause of her illness. Some of it is very effective and certainly it's the reason JAMES MASON was discovered by Hollywood--but it has to be viewed in the context of the time when psychology was being explored by both British and Hollywood filmmakers and audiences apparently embraced such stories. Mason's effectiveness in what could have been a highly unsympathetic role is what makes the film superior. Todd, while excellent at appearing to be a concert pianist, is less successful as a dramatic actress. A stronger performer in her role might have made the film more convincing than it is--particularly in making the sappy ending more convincing. It appears to have been tacked on solely to please audiences rather than being a truthful outcome to a story involving such strong-willed characters.

This is a great old film, with James Mason at his best as the brooding, aloof, complicated hero/villain. It contains a lot of cliches, not least of which is Hollywood's fervent faith in the almost occult power of hypnosis and psychiatry. But it also is full of great moments - the black and white photography seems to sing along with the glorious music. The scene where James Mason, from offstage, watches Ann Todd all alone at her piano, glowing in bright stage light against a blank background is superb. Sound and picture come together perfectly, and Mason's acting matches beautifully, as he expresses emotion struggling through layers of impassivity. The ending might seem a little dated to present-day audiences, with its implication that the heroine can be fully healed of her psychic wounds only by giving herself to one of her three suitors, but for those who like good old-fashioned happy endings, this is a fine one. Only one thing seemed rather obviously ridiculous: in the scene where the German psychiatrist is talking to the German painter who is in love with Francesca, they both carry on a long conversation in heavily-accented English, which becomes a bit comical once you realize how much more natural it would be for them just to speak German to each other.