The Lost Moment (1947) User Reviews

Haunting integrity of mood salvages noirish version of Henry James' Aspern Papers

[bmacv · 8/10 · 8 December 2002]

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.

Brooding and melancholy--worth seeing, though it's slow in unfolding.

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 10 December 2011]

"The Lost Moment" is one of the strangest films of the 1940s I have seen. I am not saying it's bad--just very, very different. The film is based on a story by Henry James ("The Aspern Papers") although like MOST films they liberally change the story. One of the most obvious is the character played by Susan Hayward. In the original story, she's described as plain and unattractive--something you could never have said about Hayward. In this film, she is gorgeous and is paired with an odd choice for a leading man, Robert Cummings. Now I am not complaining or saying Cummings was a bad choice--just an odd one since he was a bit older and not the dashing leading man you'd normally expect in a movie.

The story was originally based on a notion that some love letters from Percy Shelley were hidden somewhere and literary folks were drooling to find them. Here in "The Lost Moment", they use a fictional name for a guy who was clearly modeled after Shelley. But, unlike Shelley, this poet was an American and he simply disappeared in his prime! The only possible clue to his disappearance is the same woman who was in love with this man--and who supposedly has these love letters. But, she's an ancient recluse and has thus far resisted talking about her old lover and has refused to allow people to read these letters....if they even still exist.

Cummings plays a newspaper writer and an opportunist. His plan is to somehow get into this home with the old lady (who is now 105--played by Agnes Moorehead under a ton of makeup). When he learns she is greatly in need of money, he offers to rent out one of her rooms. While they receive him VERY coolly, he is able to secure a room and soon notices just how oppressively dismal the place is. It's like a morgue and a strong brooding sense of doom is well conveyed in the film. I won't discuss the plot any more--it would ruin the suspense. However, to me the plot, though interesting, isn't as important as the mood--which is really excellently conveyed. An interesting film--as there just aren't many like it.

Dead among the living and living among the dead.

[hitchcockthelegend · 7/10 · 25 January 2017]

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

Vintage Hollywood

[dougdoepke · 5 March 2016]

No need to detail the plot since others have done it better than I can.

Once again I'm reminded that Susan Hayward was one of Hollywood's finest actresses despite her glamorous good looks. Here she does triple duty while under the spell of an ossified aunt (an unrecognizable Moorehead) and, of course, a darkly haunted mansion. One minute she's severely repressed Tina; the next she's a deluded but happy Tina; and finally she's a liberated Tina, who's happily her true self. The versatile actress manages all three persuasively, though repressed Tina in her severe hair bun almost had me under the couch.

If Tina's having trouble with her identity, so's Venable (Cummings) who's at the mansion under false pretenses. But once he's scoped out a flowing-haired Tina, he's having trouble deciding whether he's really a sneaky publisher on a lucrative mission or just another hormonally driven ankle-chaser. Sunny actor Cummings may seem an odd choice for roaming dark mansions, still he low-keys throughout, allowing the story's Gothic merits to remain uppermost.

And what great atmosphere the staging produces. Sure, events never leave the soundstage, yet that move allows full artistic control of visual effects, which are as much a movie presence here as the performers themselves. And, oh yes, mustn't overlook poor Joan Loring as the repressed servant Amelia. Hers is a movingly soulful performance that at times is almost tearful. Too bad her character track just sort of vanishes to no conclusion. And that's a downside in the script, as John Archer's rather villainous character is also abruptly abandoned for no apparent purpose. It may be that the screenplay tried to adapt too much of the Henry James novel and ended up cutting some corners

All in all, this is vintage Hollywood hitting on at least seven cylinders despite somewhat derivative material. And a lot of that success I think is owed to outstanding producer Walter Wanger, a position in the production chain that's too often overlooked.

based on a story by Henry James

[blanche-2 · 7/10 · 11 January 2022]

Robert Cummings and Susan Hayward star in "The Lost Moment" also starring Agnes Moorhead, Joan Lorring, and Eduardo Cianelli.

Cummings plays Lewis Venable, a New York publisher visiting Venice with the goal of getting his hands on the love letters of a poet from the 19th Century, Jeffrey Ashton. The passionate letters were betwen Ashton and Juliana Bordereau.

Venable, under an assumed name, rents a room in the Bordereau house, a kind of grand guignol, dark place. Juliana (Moorhead) by this time is 105 years old and a recluse. She is being cared for by a niece, Tina, a woman who never smiles and is very strict. She obviously does not want Venable in the house. However, the family needs the money.

One night he hears music from somewhere in the house. Walking through the garden, he finally traces it to the embodiment of the young Juliana, a graceful woman with beautiful red hair falling around her shoulders, and she is wearing a beautiful gown It's Tina, who somehow steps into the past and becomes Juliana when she enters the room. To her, he is Jeffrey.

The family priest (Cianelli) warns Venable to ne careful rather than distroy Tina's loose hold on reality. But Venable wants those letters; he wants to know where they're hidden, and he plans on taking them.

I really enjoyed this. Robert Cummings is a lightweight and wrong for this - I would have loved to have seen Tyrone Power do it - but Susan Hayward was excellent in a dual role, and very beautiful.

Worth A Watch

[Rainey-Dawn · 7/10 · 24 April 2015]

'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

Remarkable Atmosphere

[tonstant viewer · 10/10 · 10 February 2002]

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.

Lush Adapation Of Henry James' THE ASPERN LETTERS

[boblipton · 6/10 · 30 October 2019]

American publisher Robert Cummings is in Venice. He is tracking down love letters written by a long-dead poet to his lover -- played by Agnes Moorhead with a creaky voice and made up as a horrific-looking 105. He inserts himself into her household as an aspiring novelist and searches for the letters. It's not only Miss Moorhead he must deal with, but Susan Hayward, Moorhead's.... great-niece? .... who during the day is a cold piece of work, but at night puts down her hair and believes she is her aunt, and Cummings is her lover.

Director Martin Gabel had never appeared in a movie before this, and never directed another. It contains the usual spooky-house look and lighting that Henry James' ponderous "The Aspern Letters", which I had to slog my weary way through in college, seems to demand, at least given the rather Gothic adaptation of the script. Apparently James had written it based on a story he had heard about about love letters that Shelley had written to Claire Clairmont -- who also had an affair with Byron, producing a daughter.

Some of the casting choices seem odd nowadays; making up Agnes Moorhead as a 105-year-old woman must have required hours in makeup, and the charm of Robert Cummings is lost on me; he always seemed to be acting, so his acting as an unscrupulous publisher acting the part of an aspiring novelist seems, except for a very few moments, rather monotonous. Still, the backlot Venice on view for a minute or two, and the lushness of the production and music score add a richness to this movie that Hollywood could impart when Tinseltown was dealing with an important work.

Excellent film...Hayward is terrific in this haunting work...

[jem132 · 9/10 · 31 December 2007]

One of the most pleasant, wonderful, haunting (funny adjectives to use together hey!), beautiful film experiences I had this year. I've never read The Aspern Papers (on my "to do" list for 2008) so I went into the film pretty much completely blind.

Robert Cummings' gives what is probably his best screen performance (still quite bland in style, but he seems to have other dimensions here too) as Lewis Venable, a young, opportunistic New Yorker publisher who travels to 19th century Venice in the hope of uncovering some lost love letters apparently written by a famous poet who mysteriously disappeared years ago and has now become very famous and a literary legend. Juliana (Agnes Moorehead, in unbelievable make-up) is his now-105 year old ex-mistress and recluse, who lives with her stern-looking, tightly wound (in her hair and biding garments as well as her manner with people), Tina (Susan Hayward, in an EXCELLENT performance) tragically becoming a spinster before it is her time. Venable wants those letters, but he doesn't want Juliana or Tina to know what he is up to, so he poses as a young writer looking to finish his novel, in order to get inside the mansion.

This blurring of Venable's identities is only the beginning of the film's obsession with identity, as we soon discover all is not what it originally seems. One night Venable discovers Tina, "living among the dead" as a re-incarnation of a younger Juliana. It seems that Tina lapses into moments where she believes she is Juliana, reads the poet's letter, and, when Venable appears at her door, drawn by the hauntingly lovely piano music, treats him as her dead lover. Hayward, ghostly in white and strikingly beautiful, and Cummings kiss- Hayward, believing he is her lost love, Cummings not knowing what to think.

The film gets even stranger from then on in, and it's just the way I like it. The atmosphere Gabel creates is astonishing- the big old gloomy dark mansion, haunting piano music and even more hauntingly lovingly visions of Hayward (she appears like some romantic dream, first by the piano, then in the garden)believing she is Juliana. The camera-work is excellent-the camera glides and swoops and general look of the film (the set design is terrific!)remind me of Ophuls' Letter From An Unknown, also another astonishingly dream-like film.

As I said before, Cummings is better here than I've ever seen him before. His character, not the conventional romantic hero, has numerous shadings, he's manipulative, and Cummings for once suggests more than bland niceness. Moorehead grabs all the praise for her astonishing turn as a 105-year old (and she nails it, believe me), but it's Hayward who gives the performance of the picture, and makes us believe in her character and the film's odd events. There is a scene where her hair is drawn in that tight bun (she still thinks she's Tina), then illusion takes over, and she thinks that she is a young Juliana. She unpins her hair, lets her long locks flow. The effect with her hair is exquisite- but watch her face. She subtly, anguishingly moves from one persona to another and it's devastating to watch.

Cummings gradually learns that he is not the only one who knows of Tina's sad condition (a doctor discusses it with him and the real Juliana also tells him the truth), where she only comes alive "among the dead". The doctor tells him he must get Tina to fall in love with him in reality for her condition (or curse, to break). Cummings obliges, and discovers a whole different Tina once he pulls away her veils of reserve, shyness, coldness and repression (God I sound like Herbert Lom in The Seventh Veil- now I truly do know that I have seen that film too many times!). She is an attractive, emotionally fragile young woman who desperately needs someone to love and care for her. It turns out that Moorehead is the only relative Hayward has ever known (her parents died before she knew them), and constantly staying by the embittered Moorehead's side, who used to read her the poet's love letters to her when she was a child, has made her own true personality disappear, illusion and fantasy making up for the dull reality of Tina's life. Cummings is the only one who has ever shown any interest in Tina as a person (Moorehead and her influence destructively dominate Tina, not help her), and the only one who can save her. He romances her conventionally, and Tina does, to some extent, show she is aware of her illness, but she "can't help herself".

So we get to the film's climax. Tina has once again retreated to illusion, and tries to attack Juliana as the old woman screams that they are her letters, SHE was Juliana and not Hayward, and that she killed her lover because he wanted to leave her. The romantic illusion is smashed, and Cummings watching this, screams out Tina's name, first in shock and desperation than in pity. Hayward seems to recognise her real name, yet at this point is so mentally confused she collapses into Cummings arms.

It's a gorgeous final sequence-a fire starts in Juliana's room as she reaches for the letters on the floor. Hayward and Cummings are downstairs, embracing as Hayward looks like a lost princess in Cummings arms. Cummings discovers Juliana's room is on fire and rescues the old woman as the house burns down- she dies, yet it's a happy ending because, as Cummings puts it in the voice-over narration "Juliana said she would always live so long as she had this house, and Tina could only begin to live now that it was gone" (it's along those lines, not an exact quote I know).

Yes, I really did enjoy that film and it's rhapsodic, romantic moments. Top marks.

I've always been interested in people but I've never liked them." Henry James.

[brogmiller · 7/10 · 1 June 2023]

Henry James' masterful novella 'The Aspern Papers', inspired by the love letters of Shelley to Claire Clairmont, has here been given the classic Hollywood treatment, that is to say it has acquired a new title, been altered out of all recognition, is utterly devoid of its author's psychological depth, robbed of his finely wrought dialogue, peopled by one-dimensional characters who bear little or no resemblance to those in the original and has opted for purely sensationalist elements.

This is actor Martin Gabel's one and only stab at directing a film and he is blessed to have the services of one of Hollywood's finest cinematographers Hal Mohr who provides oodles of atmosphere whilst legendary Alexander Golitzen is responsible for the art direction. Mr. Gabel and his cast do their best with the material at their disposal. The character played by an impassive Robert Cummings is never delineated in the novella so one can give his casting the benefit of the doubt whereas Susan Hayward as Tina Bordereau is a much glamorised version of James' tremulous, middle-aged spinster and Agnes Moorhead's withered Juliana is far more sympathetic than the greedy and domineering ancient relic of the author's imagining. The makers have also invented a distinctly non-Jamesean villain played by John Archer and thrown in for good measure Eduardo Ciannelli as a priest.

Subsequent versions although truer to James' text are all alas unsatisfactory in their way and as for screen adaptations of his other works, William Wyler's 'The Heiress' is the only one, for this viewer at any rate, that ticks all the boxes.

And if she could survive to 105

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 25 May 2013]

As the great Frank Sinatra song says, "if you could survive to 105 look at all you'll derive out of being alive". Well in The Lost Moment Agnes Moorehead does survive to that advanced age, but she truly looks like she's not deriving much from her continued existence.

The Lost Moment casts Robert Cummings as a book publisher who goes to Venice on a mission to get some rumored love letters of a famed poet who mysteriously disappeared in the last century. The great love of his life was Agnes Moorehead and she's survived him considerably. She lives in a decaying mansion with a many generations removed niece played by Susan Hayward.

Cummings comes there with a ruse to rent a room from the ladies who are in genteel poverty, not that Moorehead is exactly a spendthrift at this point. Cummings pretends he's a writer trying to soak up some Gothic atmosphere, but he wants those letters to publish. The late poet wrote some of the best romantic words ever and these would be a find. Like a lost play of Shakespeare.

The film is based on a Henry James novel and James would have to wait a bit for The Heiress for one of his works to get a really great screen interpretation. Everyone tries hard, but the emphasis in this film is on atmosphere and that seems to overwhelm the players.

However fans of Cummings, Hayward, and Moorehead will approve.

Another superb novella of Henry James

[theowinthrop · 8/10 · 3 November 2005]

The basis of this movie is a Henry James novella entitled THE ASPERN PAPERS. In the story, the narrator is a publisher who is trying to find a trove of love letters that were supposedly written by one of early 19th Century America's great romantic poets, Jeffrey Aspern. His search takes him to Venice, where he ingratiates himself into the household of Aspern's still living lover and her niece. He succeeds better than he expects, because the letters do exist - but to get to them he has to be nicer and nicer to the niece. Eventually he does read some of the letters, but his success is cut short - the niece is expecting the publisher is in love with her, and will marry her. This was not planned, and (reluctantly) he gives up his search. Then, a few years later, he returns after the aunt has died. The niece is still there, but realizing why he had been so interested in her she decided on her revenge (reminiscent, in it's way, to the the revenge of Catherine Sloper to Morris Townsend. in THE HEIRESS / "Washington Square"). She tells she burned all the letters. End of story.

The movie expands the part of the aunt (Agnes Moorehead), making her the keeper of a grave secret. Susan Hayward properly shows the emotional problems of an attractive woman facing spinsterhood. And Bob Cummings is able to show that, for all his business interest in the literary find, he is not without a human side.

Oddly enough the story was based on a true one, that is discussed by Professor Richard Altick's classic book THE SCHOLAR ADVENTURERS. The actual incident involved a cache of love and private letters of George, Lord Byron. Regretfully, they too were burned.

Slow but fine acting

[russjones-80887 · 6/10 · 1 October 2020]

Desperate to buy love letters from a famous 19th century poet to his lover, a publisher discovers that she is now 105 and living in Venice. After an introduction he rents rooms in her house but her schizophrenic great-niece obstructs his search for the letters.

Atmospheric film which captures the mood intended but the storyline is somewhat slow. Robert Cummings stars as the publisher but is outshone by Susan Hayward as the girl, for whom he falls. Honours, however, go to Agnes Moorehead who is unrecognisable as the old lady.

Promising Gothic romance drags out in predictability.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 23 June 2012]

The wonderful Agnes Moorehead is Juliana Borderau, the 105 year old resident of a Venice, Italy villa whose old love letters from a famous poet have become an obsession for American Lewis Venable (Robert Cummings). Venable arrives in Venice, rents a room from Juliana and her niece Tina (Susan Hayward) and starts his own investigation to the location of the mysterious letters and the mystery surrounding Tina's obsession with Juliana's past. What he finds out is as Gothic as "Great Expectations" and "Jane Eyre". Moorehead is unrecognizable (all except her voice, altered to sound like that of an extremely old lady), and her hold on Hayward's Tina is straight out of "Great Expectation's" Miss Havisham. Based on a Henry James story, "The Aspern Papers", "The Lost Moment" has moments of serene romance, moody photography and some genuine chills, but is ultimately a re-tread of stories we've seen many times before. Cummings would not have been my first choice to play such a part, but Hayward is convincing as she brings all of the multiple elements of Tina to life. Moorehead's role is more of a gimmick than a characterization, but she brings more to it than a less capable actress could have.

Beautiful, moody, romantic love story set in Venice

[secondtake · 14 July 2011]

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.

Creepy mystery

[HotToastyRag · 6/10 · 29 October 2017]

Robert Cummings is a literary publisher who would love to get his hands on the lost love letters of a famous fictional poet. The recipient of the letters is still alive, but at 105 years old, she's a recluse in her Venice home. Bob travels to Venice, pretending to be a mere lodger in their home, but secretly hoping to find the letters, steal them, and then publish them. The woman's young niece, Susan Hayward, is extremely strict, cold, and suspicious of Bob. There's definitely something strange about the house, which was the last place the poet was seen alive. . .

The Lost Moment is definitely creepy, a film to be added to Halloween movie nights for those of you who don't partake in the blood-and-guts franchises. Agnes Moorehead plays the old woman, and for most of the film, all you see of her are her ancient, gnarled hands. She's filmed in shadows or from behind, but the expression on Bob's face shows how decrepit and horrifying she must look. There's such an element of mystery and spookiness about the house, from the moment Susan Hayward opens the door. Prepare to get goosebumps! You won't know who to trust, or what they're hiding. For fans of Suzy, she looks very beautiful in this one; it'll come as no surprise she vied for Scarlett O'Hara!

At home with a psycho

[AAdaSC · 6/10 · 1 January 2018]

Robert Cummings (Lewis) is a crafty so-and-so. He's after some love letters that will make him a fortune and he's fully prepared to trick his way into their possession. However, we find that he does have a heart after all.

Susan Hayward (Tina) is a nutjob whilst Agnes Moorhead (Juliana) is the knowing old aunt. The setting of the film is memorable but the story is familiar. It combines elements of other films and there is no real surprise. It is ok entertainment but just lacking a scary twist.

Romantic mystery set in Venice. Robert Cummings is charming.

[negevoli-44 · 10/10 · 30 June 2000]

I now own this movie and can say it basically still stands up for me as an adult, with the caveat that I first saw it as a child, when it seemed wonderfully mysterious to me. Seeing it recently did not have quite the same effect, but I still enjoyed it very much. One reason is that as an adult I fell in love with Venice and found it to be the most beautiful and colorful of cities, whereas the film, though set in Venice, is dark and noirish. I am sure that has affected my appreciation of this movie. That aside, it is still an effective romantic mystery and manages not to be a tear-jerker. I loved Robert Cummings, both in movies and on TV, and this is one of his best. There was just something about those old-time actors that the new generation(s), by and large, seem to lack. I think maybe the old guys took their work more seriously and maybe the new guys are only interested in the big bucks, nose candy, fast cars, and you fill in the blanks.

The Lost Moment

[CinemaSerf · 7/10 · 8 January 2023]

When opportunistic publisher "Lewis Venable" (Robert Cummings) sets out to track down some long-lost love letters from recently re-discovered poet "Jeffrey Ashton", he ends up in a Dickensian-style mansion house where the writer's former mistress, the very elderly "Juliana" (an almost unrecognisable Agnes Moorhead) dressed in black, sits in her chair most of the time with frustrated daughter "Tina" (Susan Hayward) tightly wound up living the life of a caged bird. Rather than come clean about his motives, "Venable" poses as a novelist to ingratiate himself with the women - but soon, is embroiled in a complex intrigue involving the two ladies and the letters. Hayward is super - she exudes an eeriness and almost schizophrenic charisma as the young woman who seems caught in a time loop unsure as to whether she is "Tina" or her own mother. The haunting music from Daniele Amfitheatrof (and a tiny bit of Caruso too) helps build the tension carefully and effectively as the significance of the letters becomes more evident and poignant to the predicament of the women - and increasingly, their guest. Cummings is OK, he has an innate blandness about him to watch, but he has a good script to work with and good to foil to act with, and the pot stays boiling til very near the end.

I'd never seen anything quite like it - at first anyways

[AlsExGal · 8/10 · 31 July 2023]

Very loosely based on "The Aspern Papers" by Henry James, it involves a publisher, Lewis Venable (Robert Cummings), who is obsessed with getting control of and publishing the love letters of poet Jeffrey Ashton, who disappeared in Venice decades ago. The love letters had allegedly been written to Juliana Bordereau, still living in Venice, now very elderly to the point that she cannot move from her chair and claims she never sleeps. Having written to Juliana, she claims that the letters do not exist, but Lewis is not satisfied. So he comes to the Bordereau household under a false name claiming to be a novelist who wants to write his next work in their home because of its atmosphere. The Bordereaus exact a steep price for the rent, but Lewis agrees to it. It seems like this would tip off the Bordereaus to possible ulterior motives, but I digress.

The house is largely dark and very uninviting, as is Juliana's niece, Tina (Susan Hayward), who runs the household with an iron fist and is too young to be an actual niece of Juliana's since Tina is only in her 20s. The rudeness and even latent anger of Tina, the weird piano music that plays at night from an unknown location, the haunting score, and even the fact that Tina, when signing the lease agreement with Lewis, signs for both herself and Juliana simultaneously, and does so with completely different handwriting, really stirred my interest. But then the explanations arrive and it is all very ordinary.

Still it is very atmospheric, and it was a new experience to see Joan Loring, often playing cocky cockneys, give a performance as a housekeeper in perpetual terror of Tina.

Not working

[daviuquintultimate · 4/10 · 28 March 2023]

The muse of the great American poet Jeffrey Ashton (1797-1843) was his beloved Juliana Bordereau: they spent lovely moments at her palace in Venice, where the love-letters of Ashton should still be kept. American publisher Lewis Venable sniffs a best-seller item so he moves (presumabily in 1947, release date of the movie) to the gloomy Bordereau residence trying to find the letters and publish them.

Here, Venable meets the lady of the house, a Juliana Bordereau, aged 105 - who couldn't evidently have been Ashton's lover -, and her niece Tina. During the nights, Tina, dressed in old-fashioned dress, plays the piano in an abandoned wing of the palace, and immedesimates herself with Juliana (the poet's lover before 1843). Venable himself immedesimates with Ashton, and the two have a love-affair. No problem, they also have a love-affair during the day, when no one of them remembers what was happening in the nights.

Lulled by venetian gondoliers singing (neapolitan) songs, old Juliana Bordereau tells Venable that Tina uses to take her own identity, and, to top it all off, Juliana adds that she herself (Juliana, I mean) takes the identity of Rosa, an old house-keeper, nowhere to be seen or mentioned elsewhere in the film

Now... you get the idea?

Moments Are Just a Whisper and Then They're....

[JLRMovieReviews · 10/10 · 15 September 2014]

Publisher Robert Cummings is searching for love letters by a famous poet and writer. Agnes Moorehead was the objet d'amour in question. In his quest, he takes the cover of looking for a place to rent. As they are in need of money to keep their old homeplace and to keep away inevitable change, Agnes and daughter Susan Hayward charge an exorbitant amount, but he desperately agrees. In this otherworldly, haunting, and Gothic film, much of the film's appeal is its atmosphere and mood. But this has much to recommend it, the cast alone to begin with. In fact, this is one of those movies that film buffs go crazy over - the cast, the time and place, the search for love letters, the grasping for answers for things unexplainable. A true field day that delivers everything. Also, something else that was made a to-do over is the makeup Agnes Moorehead wears in this film that makes her look over 100 years old. Her subtle and understated performance gives the viewer just enough to want more. This was actor Martin Gabel's sole directorial effort, based on a Henry James novel. It was an exceptional tour-de-force for all and a true movie experience to behold. But what happens, you ask? It's just beyond your reach. We'll always keep reaching for things unattainable. The place has a hold on its inhabitants and the film has a hold on you. Don't you hear it? It's calling you....

lifeless psychological drama

[SnoopyStyle · 5/10 · 6 July 2015]

New York publisher Lewis Venable (Robert Cummings) travels to Venice to acquire the lost love letters of poet Jeffrey Ashton. He rents a room from Ashton's former lover elderly Juliana Bordereau (Agnes Moorehead) and her niece Tina (Susan Hayward). They need money. One night, he finds the normally hard Tina with her hair loose and playing the piano. She seems to think that she's Juliana in love with Ashton. She doesn't remember the next morning. Juliana reveals that Tina sometimes loses herself believing Juliana as the hated maid Rosa.

Robert Cummings is rather stiff and he is exceeded by Susan Hayward's stoneface acting. When her character changes, she becomes the embodiment of melodramatic romantic acting. This kind of acting make it impossible to develop chemistry for the two leads. There is some atmospherics but there is little tension. Everybody is so mannered.

sweet little movie

[didi-5 · 22 November 2001]

This turned up on tv and, having recently seen another James adaptation, The Innocents, I thought I'd take a look. This is quite a sweet little film, despite its sinister content and ghostly images of Venice. Cummings, Hayward and Moorehead are all excellent. "Venice" looks as good as the real thing, and the film has that watchable quality which sits with the very best of the 40s. One I'll certainly go back to.

Mystery and Gothic Menace

[JamesHitchcock · 8/10 · 11 February 2011]

Henry James, with his interest in minute psychological examination of his characters and his complex, ornate prose style, has never struck me as being the most cinematic of writers, but in fact there have been some decent film adaptations of his work, such as William Wyler's "The Heiress", based upon his "Washington Square", "The Innocents" from his "The Turn of the Screw" and three Merchant-Ivory productions, "The Europeans", "The Bostonians" and "The Golden Bowl".

"The Lost Moment" is, as far as I am aware, the earliest James adaptation for the cinema, made two years before Wyler's film. It was the only film ever directed by Martin Gabel, better known as an actor, but not particularly well-known even for that. It is loosely based upon James's "The Aspern Papers" and is set in Venice in the early 1900s. Lewis Venable, a publisher, arrives in the city in search of the love letters written by the poet Jeffrey Ashton, believing that if he can secure them and publish them he will make a fortune. Ashton (Jeffrey Aspern in James's story) was an early-19th-century Romantic poet, an American contemporary of Keats and Shelley, who disappeared mysteriously in 1843. Venable discovers that Ashton's mistress, Juliana Bordereau, is still alive at the age of 105 and concludes that the letters must still be in her possession. Using a false name, he rents a room in her palazzo.

Living with Juliana is a strange young woman, Tina, whom she describes as her niece, although there must be more than one generation between them. Tina is beautiful but austere, dressing in black and wearing her hair severely scraped back, and makes it quite clear that she does not trust Venable. Yet there is another side to her character. One night Venable finds Tina with her hair loose, wearing a white, old-fashioned dress of the mid-nineteenth century, playing the piano. She declares her love for Venable, but calls him "Jeffrey" and clearly believes him to be Ashton and herself to be the young Juliana.

Ever since at the early seventies, the era of Visconti's "Death in Venice" and Roeg's "Don't Look Now", it has been virtually obligatory for films set in Venice to celebrate the city's visual beauty. In the 1940s, however, even after the war in Europe had finished, tight budgets often precluded location shooting, and "The Lost Moment" is not a film of that sort. It is made in black-and-white rather than colour, with most of the action taking place indoors inside Juliana's gloomy palazzo. The atmosphere is one of claustrophobia, of Gothic melancholy reminiscent of that found in a number of other American films from the forties and early fifties, such as Hitchcock's "Rebecca" and "Notorious", Max Ophuls's "Caught" and Robert Wise's "The House on Telegraph Hill". (As in "Rebecca", the house turns out to be hiding a dark secret).

Although there is a rational explanation for the strange events surrounding Tina- namely that she is suffering from some psychiatric illness- other, unearthly, explanations might suggest themselves to the viewer; at times it seems that Tina is not an individual in her own right but rather the young Juliana, somehow caught in a time-warp and co-existing with her older self. It is notable that the late forties also saw a number of films on the subject of psychiatry, of which "Spellbound" is perhaps the most famous, as well as supernatural fantasies like "A Portrait of Jennie". Although no psychiatrist appears in the film, there is a Catholic priest, who plays a somewhat similar role.

There are some weaknesses in the film; the subplot involving Venable's associate Charles is not well integrated into the film, and Charles's motivation is never made entirely clear. Robert Cummings as Venable is a rather bland and unconvincing hero. Overall, however, the film is a good one. There is one particularly good performance from Susan Hayward as Tina. Hayward was always an unpredictable actress; at her best she could be very good, but she had the infuriating ability to give bad performances not only in bad films (e.g. "The Conqueror") but also in otherwise reasonably good ones (e.g. "Demetrius and the Gladiators"). Here, however, she is excellent, coping brilliantly with the difficult challenge of playing what is effectively a double role, the severe, repressed "Black Tina" and the free, uninhibited "White Tina". Agnes Moorehead, unrecognisable beneath her make-up, is also good as the aged Juliana.

Apart from Hayward, the film's main asset is its brooding atmosphere of mystery and Gothic menace. It is not quite the story that James wrote- indeed, in many ways it is closer to M R James than Henry, and closer to a mixture of Charlotte Bronte, Daphne du Maurier and M G Lewis than either. It is, however, a remarkably effective piece of cinema. I am surprised that Gabel did not go on to direct more films. 8/10