The Lost Moment

1947

Drama / Film-Noir / Romance / Thriller

4
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 64% · 2 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 64%
IMDb Rating 6.8/10 10 1445 1.4K

love letter publisher

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Plot summary

In a long flashback, a New York publisher is in Venice pursuing the lost love letters of an early-19th-century poet, Jeffrey Ashton, who disappeared mysteriously. Using a false name, Lewis Venable rents a room from Juliana Bordereau, once Jeffrey Ashton's lover, now an aged recluse. Running the household is Juliana's severe niece, Tina, who mistrusts Venable from the first moment. He realizes all is not right when late one night he finds Tina, her hair unpinned and wild, at the piano. She calls him Jeffrey and throws herself at him. The family priest warns Venable to tread carefully around her fantasies, but he wants the letters at any cost, even Tina's sanity.

Director

Martin Gabel Photo
Martin Gabel

Top cast

Joan Lorring Photo
Joan Lorring as Amelia
Robert Cummings Photo
Robert Cummings as Lewis Venable
Agnes Moorehead Photo
Agnes Moorehead as Juliana Borderau
Susan Hayward Photo
Susan Hayward as Tina Bordereau
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
813.27 MB
1280*934
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles
23.976 fps
1 hr 28 min
Seeds 12
1.47 GB
1480*1080
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles
23.976 fps
1 hr 28 min
Seeds 21

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by planktonrules 8 / 10

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

"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.
Reviewed by hitchcockthelegend 7 / 10

Dead among the living and living among the dead.

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
Reviewed by bmacv 8 / 10

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

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.
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