While I Live

I've seen this film dozens of times, albeit that the music "The Dream of Olwen" is the most haunting and beautiful piece and holds this film together, the acting and story line I find entertaining and most pleasant...It's a GREAT pity they don't make films like this now, instead of the some of the TRASH that is churned out.

I hope this film will soon be put to DVD and available in England. So many fine British films never seem to find their way to DVD of even become available to the British public

If you like truly great music (Written by Charles Williams) and a light yet very watchable film then this is for you, a haunting film that you will recall, and watch time and again..Excellent !

Compared to today's line-readers sometimes called, "actors," this cast is first-rate. A bit corny, perhaps, but so is Gone With the Wind. The film hit a nerve with 1947 audiences who were dreaming their war dead might return. Watch it with that thought in mind and you'll shed tears.

The film keeps replaying and replaying Charles Williams' "Dream of Olwen" a perhaps little too much, but I don't tire of it. For over 50 years, "Dream of Olwen" has been one of my favorite musical pieces. Not until recently did I learn that it came from this film.

The young amnesiac woman who visits on the night of the 25th anniversary of the death of Julia's sister, Olwen, brings too many coincidental similarities to Olwen. The story is an wonderful original mystery tale.

Like another reviewer on this board, I can't help but go against the grain and describe this film as tosh: moody, well-shot tosh perhaps, but tosh nonetheless. It has a nice bit of piano music in it which keeps popping up time after time, and the usual distinguished performances we see from British actors in the 1940s, but that's about it.

WHILE I LIVE has an arresting opening sequence which climaxes in a woman dropping off a Cornish clifftop. Years later, folk in the ancestral home question whether a mysterious young woman who has mysteriously arrived at the property is in fact the reincarnation of the dead woman. Yes, it's one of those melodramas with a spiritual edge, made as a result of the massive loss of life in the Second World War (just as WW1 heralded another mini-boom in spiritualism).

Sadly, WHILE I LIVE doesn't offer much in the way of mystery or depth, and after a while all of the brooding and endless dreamy moments become more than a little tiresome. I'm the sort of person who looks for incident in a film, whatever its type, and there just isn't enough of it here.

This film is only 80 minutes long, and yet it makes an impression of being at least 20 minutes longer. Although the action is mainly talk, the intrigue is so crowded with important questions of existence and identity, that the metaphysical issues and problems here almost burst the limits of the dimensions, especially that of time. The first part of the film happens in 1922, when a young oianist and composer (female) happens to a mortal accident, leaving her last compositiion unfinished. The rest of the film happens 25 years later and provides a tremendous intricacy of an existential experiment. The phenomenon can't just be brushed aside, as Christine tries to do away with it, but even if the problem ultimately is resolved by logic and rational therapy, the phenomen and experiment must remain as an unanswered question. You need to se this film several times and will probably still not quite understand it, as there are too many aspects on it to be fathomed and grasped at once, and even if you see it again and again, there will remain unanswered questions. This is a metaphysical phenomenon and nothing else, and only the old,Cornish gardener is competent enough to treat it the right way. It's one of the three great English musical films of the 40s, the others being "Dangerous Moonlight" (with the Warsaw Concerto) and "Cornish Rhapsody" with Stewart Gramger and Margaret Lockwood as the pilot and the pianist. They are all three unique and remarkable for their unsurpassed musical psychology, and this film is actually basically most about the mental strain of a pianist and composer who happens to be a woman. The risk is that you will find the film more fascinating and interesting every time you see it again.

While I Live is directed by John Harlow and written by Robert Bell, John Harlow and Doreen Montgomery. It stars Tom Walls, Clifford Evans, Sonia Dresdel, Patricia Burke, John Warwick, Edward Lexy and Audrey Fildes. Music is by Charles Williams and cinematography by Freddie Young.

It has been 25 years since her composer sister died in tragic circumstance, but Julia Trevelyan (Dresdel) still obsesses over her. Then one day an amnesiac woman arrives at the family home looking for help, and now Julia is certain that she is the reincarnation of her beloved sister.

It has become one of those films more known for its theme music than for the film itself. For here we have Charles Williams' quite beautiful "The Dream of Olwen" featuring as a key part of the narrative. It's the piece of work that Olwen Trevelyan (Fildes) was struggling to finish before her untimely death. While it's undeniably the beating heart of the pic, it's a disservice to ignore what characteristic and narrative smarts are on show.

This is a fascinating delve into not only the world of amnesia, but also to that of grief as a sometimes unstoppable force. Thus with the setting to the tale being a cliff top dwelling in Cornwall, pic is ripe for ethereal tones and shadowy visuals, with the mystery of the amnesiac lady a constant intrigue. It's all very improbable of course, and much of the acting is of its time and very "correct" as it were, but this is a lovely film with sharp themes at the core, some nifty tech aspects on show and a bona fide classic piece of music driving it forward. 7.5/10