Directed by Terence Young • 1948 • United Kingdom
Starring Eric Portman, Edana Romney, Barbara Mullen

This sumptuously stylized fable of obsession and dark delusion marries British gothic with the French-inspired poetic surrealism of Jean Cocteau’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, but casts a singular spell all its own. Wealthy aesthete Paul Mangin (Eric Portman) is obsessed with both the past, surrounding himself with antiques and Renaissance artwork, and the beautiful Mifanwy Conway (the magnetic Edana Romney, who also cowrote the screenplay), coming to believe that he and she are the reincarnations of the lovers in a centuries-old painting. When Mifanwy begins to rebel against the controlling Mangin’s elaborate fantasies, their relationship take a sinister turn.