Beware of Pity

The film opens with a frame set in post-Second World War Britain. When a young man comes to the aging Lieutenant Anton Marek Albert Lieven for romantic advice, Marek tells him a story from his own past, drawing the listener into a vivid flashback.

In the days before the First World War, Marek is assigned to an Austro-Hungarian cavalry regiment stationed in a quiet mountain town. There he meets Baroness Edith de Kekesfalva Lilli Palmer, a young woman who is paraplegic after a horse-riding accident. The baron, moved by Edith’s spirit despite her injury, asks Marek to spend time with her. Marek finds her company pleasant, and her cheerfulness begins to lift the mood around the household.

The baron’s daughter is Edith, and her father, Baron Emil de Kekesfalva Ernest Thesiger, is desperate to see her regain happiness. In his search for help, he turns to Dr. Albert Condor Cedric Hardwicke, a dedicated physician who refuses to give up. Condor observes Edith’s spirit lifting as she finds solace in Marek’s presence and correctly notes that Edith’s hope seems to come from the possibility of Marek loving her back—though Marek himself remains unaware of her feelings.

One day, Marek mentions a promising treatment in Switzerland, despite Condor’s caution to wait and investigate further. Condor later informs him that the treatment cannot help Edith, but by then the seed of hope has been planted, and Edith’s emotions have already taken root. Feeling the pull of guilt and responsibility, Marek becomes aware that Edith loves him, yet he denies the engagement publicly to avoid scandal and protect her reputation. His commanding officer then arranges a transfer to a distant unit, a move meant to put distance between rumor and reality.

Before departure, Marek seeks Condor’s counsel, but the doctor is away. Instead, Condor’s blind wife, Klara [Gladys Cooper], speaks with him and helps him recognize a possible truth—that he may indeed love Edith after all. He attempts to phone Edith, but civilian lines are blocked on the day of a larger, national catastrophe: the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand Kenneth Warrington that same day. Klara promises to visit Edith and clear up the misunderstandings, and she sets out to do so, leaving Marek to the grim business of his new posting.

When Klara arrives at Edith’s mountain home, she finds Edith alone on the rooftop terrace. Edith, having learned of Marek’s public denial, has begun to mistrust the world around her. With Klara unable to intervene, Edith wheels herself to the edge of the terrace and, overwhelmed by heartbreak and despair, leaps to her death.

Back in the present, the frame’s storyteller notes the weight of these choices—the tension between duty and desire, the peril of secrets, and the consequences of denying one’s true feelings—leaving the visitor with a lingering sense of tragedy and the enduring question of what might have been if honesty had prevailed. The memory of Edith’s fate echoes through Marek’s reminiscence, a quiet testament to love’s fragile, devastating cost.

Last Updated: October 09, 2025 at 11:15