Popular Culture Review Vol. 10, No. 2, August 1999 | Page 30

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Popular Culture Review

radio veteran with the authentic shakiness of an ancient person/ She did not re
ceive an Oscar nomination, but John Maynard of the New York Journal-American
wrote in his review of The Lost Moment: “a case could be made for Miss Moorehead
as the best motion picture actress there is” (MoMA).
One of the more recent critics to praise Moorehead’s part in The Lost
Moment was Henry James scholar Leon Edel. In a 1984 essay for the New York
Times, he ranks hers with such other great James-on-film parts as Leslie Howard’s
Oscar-nominated role in Berkeley Square and Olivia de Havilland’s Oscar-win
ning part in The Heiress. For Edel, these performances were so inspired and memo
rable that the fictional counterpart can never be the same once one has seen the
film. Paradoxically, he remarks that Moorehead’s part as Juliana in “hideous
makeup” is a thing of “lasting beauty” (23)."^
James’s narrator, also known as the tale’s “publishing scoundrel,” takes
on quite a different characterization in The Lost Moment. Wanger’s casting selec
tion for the part of the American publisher (called “Lewis Venable” in the film)
was something of a compromise. Concerned that the Jamesian film carried an
automatic “class” stigma insensitive to Hollywood’s “mass” taste, Wanger opted
to cast the part of Lewis—not according to Jamesian fidelity—^but according to
what Bernstein calls the “bobby-sox appeal” of Robert Cummings (235). Although
he had appeared in serious leading roles in Kings Row and Saboteur, Cummings
had mainly played light comic roles that appealed to younger audiences. More
appropriate candidates for the role of the publisher might have been Charles Boyer
and Rex Harrison, but they were not offered the part, so that Wanger could “hedge
his bets” with the young audience by choosing Cummings (Bernstein 235).
Wanger’s unusual choice for director was Martin Gabel, who was a noted
stage and radio veteran as well as an original member of Orson Welles’s Mercury
Theater. He had no experience in directing films.^ Indeed, a great deal of tension
arose on the set between Gabel and Susan Hayward, who later spoke harshly against
the film and its director
In Gabel’s film, the camerawork of cinematographer Hal Mohr magni
fies the Gothic elements James suggests in his own description of the Bordereau
house as a “se questered and dilapidated old palace” (1). This eerie mood has some
basis in the tale, but the film expands the horror elements. For instance, in the
beginning of the tale Mrs. Prest warns the narrator that the Bordereaus may be
feared in their neighborhood because they “have the reputation of witches”; the
narrator echoes her judgement when he privately refers to Juliana as a “subtle old
witch” (62) after bargaining for the portrait of the poet. In Bercovici’s script, the
Bordereau house becomes a dark Gothic castle under what amounts to Juliana’s
curse on the house; and the film’s relationship between the publisher and Tina
becomes a story of mental illness and melodramatic romance. The Lost Moment