Le septième voile

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.