The Seventh Veil

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.