The Lost Moment

(Martin Gabel, US 1947, 89 min., 35mm)

UCLA Festival of Preservation Tour. It's ironic that the film version of The Aspern Papers by the 19th-century American author Henry James, revered for his naturalism, should be the zenith of Hollywood gothic. In James’s story, a nameless American scoundrel bent on a publishing coup tracks the centenarian Juliana Bordereau to a decaying Venetian palazzo. In The Lost Moment, the scoundrel is an unscrupulous New York publisher (Robert Cummings), who plots to acquire Jeffrey Ashton’s love letters to his withered muse (Agnes Moorehead) even if it requires wooing the tedious great-niece, Miss Tina (Susan Hayward). Preservation funded by the Packard Humanities Institute. 

Preceded by Moods of the Sea (Slavko Vorkapich and John Hoffman, US 1941, 10 min., 35mm), a lyrical short documentary orchestrating images of a powerful natural environment. Funding provided by the National Film Preservation Foundation.