The Constant Nymph (1928)

The Constant Nymph is a 1928 British silent film drama, directed by Adrian Brunel and starring Ivor Novello and Mabel Poulton. This was the first film adaptation of the 1924 best-selling and controversial novel The Constant Nymph by Margaret Kennedy. The theme of adolescent sexuality reportedly discomfited the British film censors, until they were reassured that lead actress Poulton was in fact in her 20s.

Location filming took place in the Austrian Tyrol, and the film proved a commercial and critical success, being named the best British feature film of 1928. Jo Botting of the British Film Institute notes: "The progression through the film is from light to darkness, from space to enclosure and from hope to despair."

Synopsis

Young composer Lewis Dodd (Novello) travels to Austria to visit his mentor Albert Sanger (Georg Henrich). He meets Sanger's teenage daughters Tessa (Poulton), Antonia (Benita Hume), and Pauline (Dorothy Boyd) and Sanger's third wife Linda (Mary Clare), who does not appear to be liked by Sanger's daughters. The atmosphere is jovial and celebratory, until Sanger dies very suddenly.

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