The Lost Moment

This little film is bursting with atmosphere, brooding, wistful, corrupt, overflowing with decay, betrayal and regret. A studio better known for its westerns and horror movies is here responsible for a major gem of delicacy and suggestion.

What makes all this remarkable is that the screenplay is a classic example of Hollywood's idiotic dumbing-down of a major work of fiction, Henry James's novella "The Aspern Papers" (based in turn on the life of Lord Byron). To compare James's brief story with the film is so sad it's almost painful, yet the movie survives and succeeds through sensitive style and sturdy professionalism.

The studio sets are evocative of a time before Venice became an international theme park, and the director's experience in radio drama provides a more finely-judged soundtrack than was the norm.

If your nerve-endings are not already terminally blunted through today's cinematic overkill, this film will prove richly rewarding.

A fine mist of the gothic lingers over The Lost Moment, as it would do in the following year's A Portrait of Jennie – a mist that blurs the boundaries between past and present, between the quick and the dead. As it happens, Leonardo Bercovici adapted the screenplays for both movies, for The Lost Moment drawing (rather distantly) from Henry James' The Aspern Papers. And as in A Portrait of Jennie, his script made a haunting plunge into nineteenth-century romanticism, a rhapsody on obsession and loss.

The Lost Moment takes place (as all nineteenth-century rhapsodies should) in Venice, voluptuous and miasmatic. Arriving there incognito is a young New Yorker engaged in the literary trade (Robert Cummings), on the trail of love letters written by a poet who, after mysteriously disappearing decades before, has become a legend. Cummings knows that publishing the letters will make his name and his fortune, but he must be cagey about his purposes. The poet's mistress Juliana (Agnes Moorehead), is now a recluse of 105 living in reduced circumstances. Posing as a writer of means wanting to finish his novel, Cummings arranges to take rooms in her gloomy old palazzo.

Manderley was more inviting. The Mrs. Danvers of the piece proves to be Susan Hayward, the recluse's niece, grand-niece or even more distant kin. Draped in black with hair wrenched back into a bun, she dutifully carries out her aunt's wishes but makes it plain that Cummings' welcome will be chilly. The trappings are old-dark-house as well, with a servant girl who wanders the halls at night when she's not howling and whimpering, presumably from beatings by Hayward. Eventually Cummings meets the enfeebled Moorehead, whose dotage has not dimmed her mind or dulled her relish for the crafty games she plays; only she can lead him to the letters and shed light on the fate of their author. Events even stranger take place: At night, lured by ghostly piano music, Cummings finds Hayward, radiant in white, her tresses loosed, convinced that she is Juliana and he her poet-lover; as he phrases it, she's `walking dead among the living and living among the dead.' The claustrophobic menage-a-trois takes yet another Jamesian turning....

The Lost Moment is the sole directorial effort by Martin Gabel, a character actor who was married to Arlene Francis. Due either to his inexperience or holes in the script, some strands of the story lead nowhere, like that of the servant girl. Another concerns John Archer, whose aid Cummings enlists though he neither likes nor trusts him; his motives remain murky, and ultimately his sub-plot just fizzles out. Cummings proves another drawback. Always a weak actor, he sometimes (Kings Row, The Chase) rose to serviceable, and does here. Moorehead, buried under old-crone makeup and furlongs of black lace, is barely recognizable by visage or even by voice. Hayward's the surprise, negotiating the shifts from stern spinster to distraught damsel with grace and conviction.

Yet Gabel brings it off. Slow and resolutely low-key until it nears its finish, The Lost Moment stays compelling throughout, a literal-minded version of James' story that manages to maintain an languorous integrity all its own.

The Lost Moment is directed by Martin Gabel and adapted by Leonardo Bercovici from the Henry James novel, The Aspern Papers. It stars Robert Cummings, Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead and Eduardo Ciannelli. Music is by Daniele Amfitheatrof and cinematography by Hal Mohr.

Lewis Venable (Cummings) is a publisher who travels to Venice in search of love letters written by poet Jeffrey Ashton. Insinuating himself into the home of the poets lover and recipient of the letters, Juliana Bordereau (Moorehead), Venable finds himself transfixed by the strangeness of the place and its inhabitants, one of which is Juliana's off kilter niece, Tina (Hayward).

A splendid slice of Gothicana done up in film noir fancy dress, The Lost Moment is hauntingly romantic and ethereal in its weirdness. It's very talky, so the impatient should be advised, but the visuals and the frequent influx of dreamy like sequences hold the attention right to the denouement. The narrative is devilish by intent, with shifting identities, sexual tensions, intrigue and hidden secrets the orders of the day.

Cummings is a little awkward and his scenes with Hayward (very good in a tricky role) lacks an urgent spark, while old hands Moorehead (as a centenarian with an outstanding makeup job) and Ciannelli leave favourable marks in the smaller roles. Mohr's (The Phantom of the Opera) photography is gorgeous and bathes the pic in atmosphere, and Amfitheatrof's musical compositions are powerful in their subtleties. As for Gabel? With this being his only foray into directing, it stands as a shame he didn't venture further into the directing sphere. 7/10

'The Lost Moment' is worth watching - not too bad of a film. It's a romantic-drama (with a bit of a mystery and with a dash of thriller). I was hoping for a bit more with the ending I guess because I was left with a disappointed feeling at the end of the film.

Lewis Venable (Robert Cummings) is a publisher and he is after the love letters of an early-19th-century poet, Jeffrey Ashton, to his beloved Juliana Borderau (Agnes Moorehead). Lewis pretends to be a writer and rents a room from Juliana Borderau in hopes to gain the love letters. Juliana has a niece named Tina Bordereau (Susan Hayward). Tina has a split-personality: her real self, Tina, and that of her aunt Juliana. Tina thinks she is her aunt Juliana from time to time. Lewis finds himself in a mystery surround Juliana, Tina, and the love letters of Jeffrey Ashton.

I enjoyed the film - I was just disappointed with the ending because we never got a real explanation about Tina - an explanation for the split in her personality.

7/10

The Lost Moment (1947)

A highly romanticized version of the dark and complex story by Henry James called the Aspern Papers. It's glorious in many ways, ultra moody and mysterious. It lacks some of the delirious gloss and superb acting of, say, "Rebecca" though the similarities are clear.

The leading actor, an American in Venice, is maybe the weakest link, because he comes off as more of a naive innocent than a slightly lost and duplicitous conniver, one who gets seduced by his own mission (a common James theme). But Robert Cummings has the advantage of letting the story and the scenes dominate. The leading woman, playing a complex role, is Susan Hayward, a better actor though the main side of her role is to be steely and lifeless, which she does very well. Agnes Moorehead plays the old woman, and you won't recognize her, she's so heavily made up.

It's 1947 and still the studio era, so the entire film was shot in Hollywood, but the sets are fabulous, and the photography and lighting makes the most of it. It's beautiful, above all.

But what about the story? A great and somewhat fantastic love story. Or is it so fantastic? It seems some of the time that there is something magical happening, a crossing of time zones. But our protagonist discovers the truth, and falls in love, and the problem gradually changes. The original goal, of discovering some key lover letters from fifty years earlier, seems secondary, though it rears its head (suddenly) at the climax.

Some people might find this film "old fashioned" or a little false, somehow, with the actors playing types rather than real people. I mean, they are convincing, and compelling for sure, but they only have the qualities needed for the plot. But other people will be able to buy into all this as style, which it is, and let it take over. It's a curious and beautiful enterprise, whatever its flaws.