The Seventh Veil

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The Seventh Veil film poster

The Seventh Veil is a 1945 British melodramatic film made by Sydney Box Productions and distributed by Universal Pictures.

[edit] Plot outline

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Francesca Cunningham (played by Ann Todd) is a suicidal, amnaesiac, mental patient being treated by Dr. Larsen (Herbert Lom). Larsen leads her to describe her life so he can investigate the events that brought her to attempt suicide. The film largely consists of a series of flash-backs in which Francesca talks about her life, removing successive “veils” to recover memories.

Francesca discovers she has had a difficult life and been abused by many. Only Nicholas, a crippled musician (played by James Mason), has ever shown her compassion, though he is jealous, faintly sadistic and has relentlessly driven her on to practice the piano and avoid romantic entanglements. When she does become interested in another man, she becomes involvd in a car crash with him and severely burns her hands.

During the therapy, Francisca discovers who her real love is.

The lush, piano concerto score includes works by Chopin, Mozart, Rachmaninoff and Beethoven. It successfully counterpoints the action. Eileen Joyce doubled the concert scenes, without credit.

Filmed for less than £100,000 the film was the biggest British box-office success of 1946. It won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (for Sydney and Muriel Box).