The Seventh Veil

                

Compton Bennet's The Seventh Veil, from 1945, is an entertaining enough psychological melodrama. Herbert Lom plays a shrink who seeks to help concert pianist Ann Todd revisit her past in order to find out what traumas have caused her to cease playing. Most of her troubles stem from her guardian, James Mason at his most moody, who is alternately indifferent and obsessed with his charge. What bonds the duo is their love of music. 15 to 20 minutes of this 95 minute feature have Todd pounding away at the ivories; pleasant enough, but padding nevertheless. The supporting cast are barely serviceable B players, though Yvonne Owen has some fun with her role as Todd's bitchy schoolmate. The film is greatly enhanced by its set design which gives this film a far richer feel than most made for peanuts. 

The Seventh Veil is one of a number of films from that era that explored Freudian psychology, including Lady in the Dark, Whirlpool, and a host of film noirs. These films marked a sea change in the portrayal of psychiatrists who had been generally portrayed as heavily accented quacks. The most famous of these is Hitchcock's Spellbound, the second highest grossing film of 1945, in which Hitch portrayed shrinks as "dream detectives" working to uncover traumas that have led to neurotic behavior.

Compton Bennet lacks the insight, audacity, and visual flair of a Hitchcock, but this, his first feature, gained him entre into Hollywood and demonstrates his taste and craftmanship; talents he only displayed fitfully throughout his film career. Lom is particularly deft and ingratiating as the psychiatrist. I was reminded of his wonderful performance as a therapist in Cronenberg's The Dead Zone where Lom similarly displays subtlety and sensitivity. It's a nice contrast to the monstrous villains I usually saw him play growing up or his role as Peter Sellers' straight man in the Pink Panther films. Ann Todd is one of my least favorite leading femmes of the 40s, however, her inert and zombified presence suits her damaged character here and she is not bad as a juvenile. I adore James Mason, especially his purring voice. His role fits him like a glove and Bennet gives him a few bravura moments, especially a nice low angle shot of his eyes flashing with pain and hate as Todd tells him of her desire to marry a suitor.

The sado-masochistic nature of Mason and Todd's relationship should make this film seem ludicrous in these supposedly emancipated times. Mason's patriarchal cruelty makes Todd's choice of him as her eventual partner seems like an affront to the goodwill of the 21st Century viewer. However, none of Todd's suitors has the sexual magnetism of Mason. They all seem to be Ralph Bellamy to his Cary Grant. The Seventh Veil is by no means a great film, but, thanks chiefly to Mason's clenched performance, it does exert an odd, darest I say, unconscious pull.