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If you like melodrama, check this one out. It is well-made and is acted with sincerity by some fine British actors who achieve great dramatic effect.

Piano music is secondary to the story and only small snippets of music are played. You will barely notice the piano because this movie is overwhelmingly a psychological drama. So much so that the psychiatrist is given almost super-human insight and ability. This is not a negative because it is not crackpot or over the top.

James Mason is outstanding and very believable in a cerebral, complex role. Think of the best James Mason performance you ever saw. This equals it, I guarantee. Ann Todd is solid and believable, although somewhat coldly distant from the audience, but that was her style. She stays in character and keeps it interesting.

Herbert Lom must have made a zillion movies, many obscure or trifling. However, this film proves that he was a first-rate actor. His performance here as the psychiatrist is very straight, serious and effective. You won't believe it is the same actor who was in those "Pink Panther" movies.

Note how the cave-like home of the artist ("Leyden") appears claustrophobic in comparison to the spacious comfort of the main mansion set. This, and the deliberate posing of Todd to look uncomfortable in Leyden's home are subtle examples of the high standard of care and planning that must have gone into this production.

This is high-caliber melodrama, not overdone but just interesting and effective.

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.

Excellent psychological thriller about a repressed pianist (Ann Todd) and her equally repressed cousin (James Mason) who is also her guardian.

Slow but compelling story about a young girl with musical talent who is sent to live with her odd cousin. They seem to despise one another and have only music in common. He tries to mold her into a concert pianist but she falls in love with an American band leader (Hugh McDermott). He whisks her off to Europe to continue her education. She becomes a famous pianist but is always under the Svengali-like spell of her lame cousin until she attempts suicide by jumping off a bride. Enter the doctor (Herbert Lom) who tries to unlock her secrets.

The music is glorious but it's the stunning Ann Todd who is mesmerizing here. A cool icy blonde with a Garbo mouth, Miss Todd (once married to David Lean) is one of the greatly underrated English actresses of the 40s. She is just superb here as Francesca (not Francis and she's NOT Ann Harding as mentioned in other reviews here). Todd has an uncanny ability to play repressed yet volcanic women. She was equally excellent in films like SO EVIL MY LOVE, MADELEINE, TIME WITHOUT PITY, and THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS. She also got to work for Hitchcock in the US in THE PARADINE CASE.

As Todd and Mason play cat and mouse, the viewer is left to guess what their secrets are and how the men in her life fit in. Todd's story is basically told in flashback while she;s under hypnosis. We never learn Mason's story.

Handsome film and well worth sticking with. Also a word must be said for Todd's amazing piano-playing scenes. She displays about the best keyboard work in any film I can think of. Her scenes as the pianist as excellent; my guess is she could also play in real life.

While Deborah Kerr, Greer Garson, and even Margaret Lockwood became major stars and well-known in the US, Ann Todd remains virtually unknown. What a pity. She's superb.

I hadn't seen this for over 20 years until tonight: it was a well-made well acted atmospheric potboiler with a touch of Mills & Boon. But the range of emotions and a similar story I think were better displayed in Humoresque.

Young girl austere looking 35 yo Ann Todd grows up under the domination of her handsome guardian limping James "Svengali" Mason who brings out her talent as a (concert) pianist. She falls in love with a handsome American band leader, but the stress of her lifestyle leads to a breakdown and attempted suicide. Grey-haired psychologist handsome Herbert Lom is the man on a mission to help her recover her senses. There's plenty of brooding handsome b&w nitrate photography and splendidly ornate décor to complement all the passion and histrionics – this is a Woman's Picture par excellence! The only thing that let it down for me - and my daughter - was the last 5 minutes and the very contrived resolution, but it had to end somehow!

It must have been totally engrossing to my feminine side because the 90 minutes rushed by, but I'd also recommend it to blokes who appreciate decent competent films made at the time Britain was supposed to be on its knees and broke.

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.

My companions and I thoroughly enjoyed watching this classic movie last night! It came through as a compelling drama, from the premise to the finale. Contrary to the majority of reviews of this movie I've read so far via the internet sites, I found the movie quite enjoyable and thought provoking.

All nitpicking and analysis aside, it told a compelling story, albeit, in the genre of other stories or a universal theme, involving a over-possessive mentor and protégé--similar to the stories of the Phantom of the Opera or My Fair Lady (Pygmalion.)

But, so what? It got my attention. It was good story telling with compelling acting. It reeled me in, and I willingly went with the flow.

I think it should not be compared to our modern day standards of psychology, perhaps, or our understanding of what hypnosis does or doesn't provide for a patient. Maybe, we need to simply view it from the perspective of that era or day. Fit into the shoes of the moviegoer in the mid 1940s, instead.

Using back flashes, hypnosis to reveal the patient's (Francesca James) history, in order to unravel the reason for Francesca's "catatonic" state or phobic fear of playing piano, works well as a tool.

We experience the natural unraveling of the main characters plight through a compelling story about Francesca Cunningham (Ann Todd), a concert pianist's life so far, and how her past reveals the likely causes for her current mental state.

The austere scenes including the stately home of Nicholas, demonstrating wealth with no heart, the concert halls, are excellent settings for the interaction between the players and their characters. It all provided rich fodder for building their characters--though there was only time for quick studies in the movie.

The character of Francesca carried quite a heavy bag of deep rooted emotions--between her desire for music, for love with a man, her compulsion to stay put under the tutelage and power of Nicholas, her guardian (James Mason), intertwined or constricted by her ambivalent feelings and inner turmoil.

She appears to show an ambivalent, resistance to her guardian's obsessive or "stay or go" attitude, which ultimately leads to her breakdown and suicide attempt.

From the first days when Francesca, a fourteen year old young woman who is left as an orphan, arrives at his home, Nicholas thrusts her into his personal web or emotional prison--holding her hostage to his own desires for music and achievement. He drives her, unrelentingly and abusively, to achieve music excellence as a career, concert pianist.

It appears to be for her ultimate good, as he points out repeatedly over the years of her emotional captivity. Or we are led to consider that in fact, it is because of his own agenda as an embittered man and unfulfilled musician himself.

Against her will, in the beginning, Cousin Nicholas, forces or compels her to study and practice piano.She, therefore, studies for years under his "driven" and austere direction--avoiding relationships and normal activities. Her inner life is stunted.

Everything in her life appears to be based on her guardian's demands and the power he seems to have over her. She relinquishes all interest or desire to have a normal life, until she meets and is pursued and wooed by the character played by Peter Gay, an American musician living in England. He breaks through her barrier of shyness and austerity.

To some movie reviewers or critics, this may be a over the top, stylized or melodramatic film, but it is intense and there is a mood created by the sets.

We get the picture of her life with James Mason, Cousin Nicolas, who plays the part with his ever-present aloofness and sinister delivery. Ann Todd is fine. She doesn't reveal much through her dialogue, but looks can say a lot, as they say. The eyes have it.

The music is incredible, and after perusing the web, I finally discovered who was her double as the pianist, Eileen Joyce, who didn't get any credit in the film for her superb playing which made the film a winner. In any case, Ann Todd did a great job of faking it as the real pianist.

The cast of characters, including the Doctor, Herbert Lom, the portrait artist, the American musician, and of course, James Mason as the overly dominant and and cold-hearted, Nicholas, et al, do their parts in unwinding or weaving this tale.

In the end the Seventh Veil is not only lifted from Francesca, but also from Nicholas as her mentor, and subsequent savior of sorts. She returns to him as her trustee and real love. A little melodrama from British films in the 1940s never hurt anyone. It's fun also.

Frankly, if you enjoy classic films, and if you just want to enjoy the ambiance and storyline, and don't want to analyze too much, this is a fine film for an old fashioned, classic movie night at at home, along with friends. Curl up and enjoy. I highly recommend it.

Chopin meets Freud in this story of a classical pianist and her rise to international stardom under the tutelage of her possessive Svengali uncle, played by a menacing, misogynist James Mason. The plot unfolds largely in flashback from the psychiatrist's couch, where the troubled patient, under hypnosis, recounts the traumas of her young life, including a whirlwind engagement to an American musician and a romance with a sympathetic portrait artist (both attracting the ire of Uncle Mason). The end result of all this therapy is to see which of the four men (including psychiatrist Herbert Lom) she'll turn to when cured, but her ultimate (and not entirely unpredictable) decision is a little suspicious: maybe she should have spent more time on the doctor's sofa.

Herbert Lom played the principal part as a psychiatrist, in a successful 1960s British TV series called "The Human Jungle".I feel sure he got this part from his resume in "The Seventh Veil"(1945) playing the role of Dr. Larsen the psychiatrist who unravels the mental problem which plagues a suicidal Ann Todd (Francesca Cunningham).I have a love of films which portray great dexterity at playing classical music.In my collection are Margaret Lockwood in "Love Story" (1944) and John Garfield in "Humoresque (1945), I even liked Cornel Wilde playing Frederic Chopin!Once again Eileen Joyce is called upon to provide the authentic classical piano music heard on the soundtrack.Featured pieces she plays include: the Grieg piano concerto in A, the Pathetique sonata, 2nd movement, by Beethoven, the Brahms lullaby and the Rachmaninov piano concerto no.2 in c minor which she also played as a backdrop to "Brief Encounter (1945).The music is under the expert direction of Muir Matheson with the London Symphony Orchestra.

Other reviewers have described the plot adequately so just a few additional notes on the acting.Psychiatry was a popular theme with film makers in the 1940s c.f."Spellbound" with Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman (1945) and it features as a means to rescue a suicidal Ann Todd.She plays the role with a rather expressionless demeanor throughout.Was this because she was directed to play it this way by her director as her character was being totally dominated by her guardian and 2nd cousin Nicholas, as played by a dark, brooding and menacing James Mason?She did however act playing the piano pieces effectively.Did Eileen Joyce give Ann some backstage tutoring to give authenticity to her "playing"?The denouement when Francesca is cured by Dr Larsen and has to choose one of her three male friends is, I agree with a previous reviewer, a bit "Mills & Boon".Overall I enjoyed this film and rated it 6/10 mainly because of the wonderful classical music played.

A confined, upper-class English girl is passed over to a guardian where she is made to practice piano.

Leave it to the British to treat the subject of repressed emotion with such class and restraint. Francesca (Todd) is the very epitome of repressed feeling thanks to those presiding tyrannically over her life. Her only release from a cheerless existence are lushly romantic concerts, where the gloriously surging music echoes what's inside her. Without that, we might never know what lies beyond those tightly pursed lips. Even her quietly assertive flings with Peter and Maxwell are stripped of anything like outward emotions.

And all the time, her crippled guardian (Mason) makes her practice and practice and practice, alone and in an empty mansion. Poor Francesca, no wonder she cracks up. Nonetheless, it's drawing room drama at its most civilized.

I get a kick out of imagining how a boisterous American studio such as Warner Bros. would have handled the material, maybe with Joan Crawford in the lead. Anyway, Todd is appropriately restrained, while Mason is darkly mysterious as the Svengali taskmaster. But, I'm still wondering why that last scene seems so right when the screenplay has given us so little preparation to think it would be. Maybe it's the power of Mason's brooding presence that makes it work, but I think it does.

Anyway, as long as you don't mind presiding psychiatrists (Lom) with an answer for everything that ails us, this may be your cup of tea, British style.

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.

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.

Get that film poster slogan, pretty racy for wartime Britain I'd say, although the content is a bit less so. Tapping into the then vogue for using regressive hypnosis as a plot device, the story here concerns a young woman Francesca, played by Ann Todd, with a gift for playing piano and the life choices she has to make, not only whether to pursue music as a career but also which suitor to select from a mixed bag of three.

Candidate number one is her older second cousin (definitely not her uncle!) Nicholas, played by James Mason. Nicholas uses a walking stick, which marks him as emotionally as well as physically crippled, he takes her in as his ward to his massive house and subjects her to a rigorous disciplinarian regime of endless practice and absolutely no contact with men.

Did I say no men? Enter candidate number two who is a young American musician she meets at the Royal Conservatoire who by nights plays trumpet in a band. Unsurprisingly, she falls for his loquacious charms but before they can run away to marry, Nicholas reclaims her and puts her back in her cage.

Years later, with Francesca now moulded by him into a successful concert pianist, he invites a posh young artist to paint his star's image. Mistake! This is candidate number three and they fall in love during her sittings prompting another, more violent intervention by control-freak Nick. Then boyfriend number two turns up again, making it all too much for the poor girl, all this, as we've seen in the opening scenes, pushing her to attempt suicide by jumping in the river. Her story is then unfolded in a series of flashbacks related by her under the soothing hypnosis of Herbert Lom's smooth psychiatrist.

It all leads up, as you might guess, with Francesca having to choose between the three men in her life before the end-credits come up, although the choice she makes made me wonder if some further hypnosis wasn't at work.

A big schlocky melodrama, interspersed with snippets of some of the best known piano works in the classical music canon, Todd is appealing as the conflicted Francesca and Mason, already typecast as a brooding loner with a mean streak, is the best of the rest although Lom makes a good impression too as the supportive shrink.

One of the most successful ever British films at the box-office, what it lacks in depth, it makes up for with its unashamed romanticism and hint of hypnotic mysticism.

Whoever thought control could look so handsome? In The Seventh Veil, Ann Todd comes under the control of her music teacher and guardian James Mason, and even though he's incredibly overwhelming, he's also incredibly handsome. He insists she devote her entire life to her piano playing and prevents her from having any form of a social life. As in many stories of this kind, the well-intentioned trainer becomes overbearing, and the meek pupil loses it.

Ann Todd is very convincing as weak and meek, and James Mason is very convincing as being intense and controlling. When the main characters are written and performed well, you're off to a good start. This isn't normally my favorite time of love story, but since James Mason is so handsome, it's easy to forgive him and hope he gets the girl. Give it a watch and see if you agree!

This movie came out when a new fascination with the science of psychology was all the rage, and this movie positions itself as a serious dissection of its female protagonist's mental state. What a crock!

That protagonist is played by Ann Todd, who is physically incapable of letting an emotion actually show on her face. She's abused, emotionally and physically, by friend of the family James Mason, who takes her in as his ward. A drippy plot has her deciding which of three men she's going to choose as the man to live her life with, or rather the movie decides for her since she seemingly has no volition of her own and no inner life. Then in the end she winds up with the abuser! Nice message to send there.

This movie is terrible. It's so funereally paced and so horribly acted by Todd that it's virtually unwatchable. Mason is fine, but he plays an utterly gross and despicable character who has no arc of his own. With this crackpot jackass and a boring cipher played by an actress who couldn't act if her life depended on it as our two principal characters, who cares what happens? Answer: we don't.

Grade: F.

Seven veils ago, I saw this film, and here it is again, all wrapped up in its mystery once more. The lead performances by Ann Todd and James Mason are so good that the whole film sweeps you away with its rather implausible story. No wonder it got an Oscar for best original screenplay by the Two Boxes (Muriel and Sydney Box, a famous cinematic couple, Sydney also being the producer of this film), and is one of the ten most popular British films of all time, according to a survey. This film also launched Herbert Lom's career onto a higher level, because he was so reassuring and calm as the hypno-therapist who treats Ann Todd that everyone wanted to run to him with their troubles, or at least see more of him on the screen, which was almost as good. Once again, we see the Scottish actor Hugh McDermott (1906-1972) playing an American, which he did so often everybody thought he really was one. (Of course, it is anatomically impossible for a Scot to be an American, as everybody knows, unless they have their kilts surgically removed at birth, that is.) Muir Mathieson not only conducts the orchestra (the London Symphony Orchestra) but is actually seen to conduct the orchestra, for this is a film about a musician, namely Ann Todd herself, a tormented concert pianist who has lots of veils smothering her oppressed psyche and who is worried about her hands ever since a sadistic headmistress caned them at school just before a music exam, causing her to fail it and miss a music scholarship. And as one sensationalist poster advertising this film in 1945 stated: 'It dares to strip bare a woman's mind.' Well, that is a terrifying thought to us men, for what might we find there? And surely it is impolite to remove veil after veil like that, ending up with the seventh and last, beneath which we will at last understand her, not to mention what we might see. You know what we men are like about wanting to lift veils and have a peek. When I was four, I used to peek under the skirt of a girl at school named Rita to see what colour knickers she was wearing, as she changed colours every day. I would then shout out to the class: 'They're blue today!' or 'They're pink today!' What fun. It was also such fun to tease her, as she was rather stuck on herself and was always flouncing around self-importantly. But this film is in black and white, so we can't tell what colour knickers anybody at all is wearing. And in any case, in 1945, there were no scenes which showed them anyway. Sydney Box in 1957 produced an amusing film entitled THE TRUTH ABOUT WOMEN, with Larry Harvey. So you see, Box spent years trying to understand them, and even with all the help his wife could give him, I wonder if he ever succeeded. Most of us chaps are still exploring this mysterious subject, except for the ones who bat for the other side, of course, to whom women are objects of indifference, which is such a pity and such a waste of pulchritude. ('Pulchritude' was Charlie Chaplin's favourite euphemistic word, a nod in the direction of gentility. Look it up.) This film is very much a melodrama in the high style. Ann Todd is left an orphan in her teens and her only living relative is James Mason, a second cousin. He reluctantly takes her in, but has an inveterate hatred of women. He is continually looking accusingly at the oil portrait of his deceased mother, which hangs over the mantel of the drawing room, so that gives us a clue. He is extremely rich and lives in a kind of small palace in London. He walks with a pronounced limp, aided by a stick. He barely speaks to Todd, having contempt for her because she is female. He often disappears for weeks on end without explanation, and he turns up late at night in top hat and tails, having been at Pratt's perhaps, and God knows what opera before that, on his own of course, as he is a solitary figure. All the servants in the house are men. If it were not 1945, when no such thing existed, we might even suspect him of being gay. But his attitude towards Todd changes entirely when he discovers that she can play the piano excellently well. For he is a classical music fanatic. He plays, but not well enough. It occurs to him that he can realize his passion for the piano by nurturing the genius of his ward, so he spares no trouble, sends her to the Royal College of Music (some scenes are shot there, and Ann Todd spent three months there preparing to play her role), and is always by her side for the five hours a day that she practices, obsessively promoting her career. She becomes a famous pianist, plays Rachmaninoff concerti and so forth in flowing dresses. Ann Todd herself could play the piano, and there are many scenes where she is really doing it, which are most impressive. For the final sound track, however, Eileen Joyce recorded the pieces. She is the same person who played all that Rachmaninoff on the sound track of David Lean's BRIEF ENCOUNTER of this same year. This is essentially a psychological melodrama, so the psyches of Mason and Todd are the centre of our concern. They are both deeply disturbed people. And what will come of all this? Especially when men start to enter Ann Todd's life? Mason takes that very badly. The rules of IMDb reviewing forbid discussion of the ending, so it is not possible to go into what happens when the seventh veil is lifted by the determined Herbert Lom, with his relentless hypnotherapy sessions. But it is certainly all very dramatic indeed.

I watched this 1945 film, because I was 9 years old in that year and wanted to see how the era was portrayed. (I liked the 78 RPM shellac records were the only kind commercially existing then. But I digress.)

I first gave the film a "5" (which is low for me) because the writers, though inspired by a real story, devised a "backstory" that was unnecessarily long, added little to the film, and had the protagonist embarrassingly portrayed as a child by the adult star, Ann Todd.

I increased my rating to a "6" after we progressed past childhood and onto an interesting, although antiquated, presentation of psychiatry as it was simplistically understood at the time. Ms. Todd and Mr. Mason carried the movie, despite a lackluster supporting cast.

How did I get to a "7," which is my average? Well, that was because of the last half hour that presented a somewhat interesting narrative, plus, a surprise ending.

Oh, and I enjoyed the piano music throughout.