Get that film poster slogan, pretty racy for wartime Britain I'd say, although the content is a bit less so. Tapping into the then vogue for using regressive hypnosis as a plot device, the story here concerns a young woman Francesca, played by Ann Todd, with a gift for playing piano and the life choices she has to make, not only whether to pursue music as a career but also which suitor to select from a mixed bag of three.
Candidate number one is her older second cousin (definitely not her uncle!) Nicholas, played by James Mason. Nicholas uses a walking stick, which marks him as emotionally as well as physically crippled, he takes her in as his ward to his massive house and subjects her to a rigorous disciplinarian regime of endless practice and absolutely no contact with men.
Did I say no men? Enter candidate number two who is a young American musician she meets at the Royal Conservatoire who by nights plays trumpet in a band. Unsurprisingly, she falls for his loquacious charms but before they can run away to marry, Nicholas reclaims her and puts her back in her cage.
Years later, with Francesca now moulded by him into a successful concert pianist, he invites a posh young artist to paint his star's image. Mistake! This is candidate number three and they fall in love during her sittings prompting another, more violent intervention by control-freak Nick. Then boyfriend number two turns up again, making it all too much for the poor girl, all this, as we've seen in the opening scenes, pushing her to attempt suicide by jumping in the river. Her story is then unfolded in a series of flashbacks related by her under the soothing hypnosis of Herbert Lom's smooth psychiatrist.
It all leads up, as you might guess, with Francesca having to choose between the three men in her life before the end-credits come up, although the choice she makes made me wonder if some further hypnosis wasn't at work.
A big schlocky melodrama, interspersed with snippets of some of the best known piano works in the classical music canon, Todd is appealing as the conflicted Francesca and Mason, already typecast as a brooding loner with a mean streak, is the best of the rest although Lom makes a good impression too as the supportive shrink.
One of the most successful ever British films at the box-office, what it lacks in depth, it makes up for with its unashamed romanticism and hint of hypnotic mysticism.
Candidate number one is her older second cousin (definitely not her uncle!) Nicholas, played by James Mason. Nicholas uses a walking stick, which marks him as emotionally as well as physically crippled, he takes her in as his ward to his massive house and subjects her to a rigorous disciplinarian regime of endless practice and absolutely no contact with men.
Did I say no men? Enter candidate number two who is a young American musician she meets at the Royal Conservatoire who by nights plays trumpet in a band. Unsurprisingly, she falls for his loquacious charms but before they can run away to marry, Nicholas reclaims her and puts her back in her cage.
Years later, with Francesca now moulded by him into a successful concert pianist, he invites a posh young artist to paint his star's image. Mistake! This is candidate number three and they fall in love during her sittings prompting another, more violent intervention by control-freak Nick. Then boyfriend number two turns up again, making it all too much for the poor girl, all this, as we've seen in the opening scenes, pushing her to attempt suicide by jumping in the river. Her story is then unfolded in a series of flashbacks related by her under the soothing hypnosis of Herbert Lom's smooth psychiatrist.
It all leads up, as you might guess, with Francesca having to choose between the three men in her life before the end-credits come up, although the choice she makes made me wonder if some further hypnosis wasn't at work.
A big schlocky melodrama, interspersed with snippets of some of the best known piano works in the classical music canon, Todd is appealing as the conflicted Francesca and Mason, already typecast as a brooding loner with a mean streak, is the best of the rest although Lom makes a good impression too as the supportive shrink.
One of the most successful ever British films at the box-office, what it lacks in depth, it makes up for with its unashamed romanticism and hint of hypnotic mysticism.