The Lost Moment

Robert Cummings is a rich young publisher from the U.S.A. of 30 years back, who goes to Venice in search of the love letters of a poet who disappeared in that city many years before. He buys a gondola, a gondolier, and his way into the mansion of the poet's one-time lover Juliana (Agnes Moorehead), now getting on in years. In fact she is 105, and gnarled appropriately. Susan Hayward is her schizophrenic niece, who becomes the Juliana of 80 years ago in the evenings and consequently doesn't get much sleep. The letters are located after various setbacks. Perhaps the most disturbing of these is due to the advent of an artificial bird reminiscent of the bat in "Lost Weekend." which does a couple of circuits of Juliana's boudoir, flies headlong into the wall, and has nothing whatsoever to do with anything. The letters are obviously strong medicine, for though we are not permitted to dip into them Robert Cummings is, and his eyes are fit to be knocked off with sticks. All ends with our publisher losing both the letters and the chance of calling Juliana "auntie" but gaining an ex-schizophrenic bride, and ourselves learning that deceased poets apparently inhibit plant growth in Venetian gardens.

Verdict: Mystery-romance in the Hollywood manner, but a little above average.