The Constant Nymph (1928 film)

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."

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.

Lewis contacts the girls' uncle in Cambridge, who comes to Austria accompanied by his daughter Florence (Frances Doble). After a whirlwind courtship Lewis proposes to Florence, who eagerly accepts his offer of marriage. Tessa is distraught at the news. It is decided that Tessa and Pauline will be sent to a boarding school in England. Meanwhile Lewis and Florence attempt to settle down in London, but find that in the home setting things are very different and Lewis comes to feel trapped by the superficiality of London society and the realisation of his wife's ambitious, pushy nature.

Tessa and Pauline are unhappy at school and decide to run away, arriving at the home of Lewis and Florence on the evening on which Florence has arranged a musical recital designed to showcase Lewis' talents to her influential friends. Florence is extremely annoyed by the interruption to her evening and allows the girls to stay, but with ill-disguised bad grace. Lewis is angry at his wife's attitude, and ends up taking her to task in front of the gathering, leaving her humiliated.