While I Live
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2016}}
{{Use British English|date=May 2016}}
{{Infobox film
| name = While I Live
| image = Whileilive1947.jpg
| caption = UK DVD cover
| director = John Harlow
| producer = Edward Dryhurst
| writer = John Harlow, Doreen Montgomery
| based_on = play Olwen by Robert Bell
| starring = Sonia Dresdel
Tom Walls
Carol Raye
| music = Charles Williams
| cinematography = Freddie Young
| editing = Doug Robertson
| distributor = 20th Century Fox (UK)
| released = {{Film date|1947|10|07|df=yes}}
| runtime = 85 min
|budget = £200,000{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article187583389 |title=JOHN WARWICK HOME |newspaper=Warwick Daily News |issue=8742 |location=Queensland, Australia |date=11 August 1947 |accessdate=8 April 2024 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}}
| country = United Kingdom
| language = English
}}
While I Live is a 1947 British drama film directed and co-written by John Harlow and starring Sonia Dresdel, Tom Walls and Carol Raye.{{cite web|url=http://explore.bfi.org.uk/4ce2b6baa326b|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120711140404/http://explore.bfi.org.uk/4ce2b6baa326b|url-status=dead|archive-date=2012-07-11|title=While I Live (1947)|work=BFI}} While I Live is best remembered for its musical theme "The Dream of Olwen" composed by Charles Williams, reprised at intervals throughout the film, which became hugely popular in its time and is still regularly performed.{{cite web|url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/556087/while-i-live#credits|title=While I Live (1947) - Music - TCM.com|work=Turner Classic Movies}} The film itself became widely known as The Dream of Olwen.{{cite web|url=http://www.radiotimes.com/film/msx7h/while-i-live|title=While I Live|author=David Parkinson|work=RadioTimes}} The film was based on a play by Robert Bell; referred to in the opening credits as This Same Garden, it was actually first produced under the title Olwen in March 1947, with Hilda Bayley as Julia.'Chit Chat: The Granville', The Stage, 27 March 1947, p. 4.https://theatricalia.com/play/kpr/olwen/production/1esv
Plot
In Cornwall in 1922, young pianist and composer Olwen Trevelyan (Audrey Fildes) is struggling with the ending of a piano tone poem she is composing. Driven to complete the piece by her domineering elder sister Julia (Sonia Dresdel), Olwen becomes agitated and despondent, and one night sleepwalks to the edge of a cliff near their home. Julia follows her and shouts her name but Olwen, abruptly awakened, loses her balance and falls to her death on the rocks below. Julia is unable to come to terms with Olwen's death and the guilt of her own role in it, over the years becoming a reclusive, obsessive figure whose main raison d'être is to keep Olwen's memory alive. Olwen's final composition gains her posthumous recognition, and each year on the anniversary of her death it is broadcast on the radio.
On the 25th anniversary of Olwen's death, Julia is listening to the broadcast when she hears a frantic knocking at the door and opens it to admit an unknown young woman (Carol Raye), who immediately walks up to the piano and begins expertly playing along with the piece on the radio. The young woman claims to have lost her memory and to have no idea of who she is or how she came to chance upon the isolated house, yet she seems to have a familiarity with the surroundings and the history of the Trevelyan family. Struck by her physical resemblance to Olwen, Julia offers her refuge and, also seeing behavioural traits reminiscent of Olwen, becomes convinced that the woman is the reincarnation of her dead sister. A local faith healer, Nehemiah (Tom Walls), who also claims second sight, becomes involved and it seems increasingly as though history is repeating itself, culminating when the young woman too is found standing precariously on the edge of the cliff from which Olwen fell.
Cast
- Sonia Dresdel as Julia Trevelyan
- Tom Walls as Nehemiah
- Carol Raye as Sally Grant
- Patricia Burke as Christine Sloan
- Clifford Evans as Peter Sloan
- John Warwick as George Grant
- Audrey Fildes as Olwen Trevelyan
- Charles Victor as Sgt. Pearne
- Edward Lexy as Selby
- Ernest Butcher as Ambrose
- Enid Hewitt as Ruth
- Sally Rogers as Hannah
References
{{More citations needed|date=September 2014}}
External links
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20160310021859/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6baa326b While I Live] at the British Film Institute
- {{IMDb title| 0039984 }}
{{John Harlow}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:While I Live}}
Category:British black-and-white films
Category:Films set in Cornwall
Category:Films directed by John Harlow
Category:Films scored by Charles Williams (composer)
Category:Films shot at MGM-British Studios