A Movie Nearly Every Night: Portrait in Black

Portrait in Black (1960)
Dir. Michael Gordon
Starring: Lana Turner, Anthony Quinn, Richard Basehart, Sandra Dee

Why do you have to be so negative all the time?

This started with such great promise. Lana Turner! Anthony Quinn! Richard Basehart? No way! And Sandra Dee? AND JOHN SAXON? Is this movie made in heaven or what? And all with an awesome (and uncredited) Saul Bass (or Saul Bass inspired) opening sequence.

What? You didn't know that October is officially John Saxon Month?

So what do I do? I go and open my big mouth and I say to the cousin/roommate:

"Hey, wouldn't it be funny if the titles were the best part of the movie?"

Yeah, and it's too bad because this has the makings of a pretty decent story, and in the hands of someone like Nicholas Ray it would have probably been a masterpiece. Instead it's just kind of silly.

Lloyd about to growl out some insult/complaint/reprimand

Friends, I loves the Lloyd Nolan. He's generally good in poor pictures and he usually plays the same gruff-talking sorta fella: maybe a gangster, maybe just an honest, plain-talking small-town doctor. He leans toward "maybe a gangster" in this one and gets all the best lines, but he doesn't last very long and it's a shame because when he's gone you really miss having him around.

"You were so nice in Peyton Place, Lloyd. What's happened to you?"

He gets to push around wife Lana Turner for about 10 minutes and then he's done. But it sets the scene for the rest of the movie because while Lana is physically and mentally tormented by the treatment from husband Lloyd, she ultimately seems to enjoy or want to be pushed around by the other men in the picture. All credit for this impression is not in the script so much, which implies, but doesn't really say "I like to be pushed around," but is due to the way Russell Metty films her. He also shot Lana in Sirk's Imitation of Life the year before and also did Touch of Evil. (Yeah. Nice, huh? Thank God for some real talent on this picture)

Metty likes to light and shoot poor troubled Lana over the shoulder of the men trying to control her. First in gorgeous shadowy beigey-greens at Anthony Quinn's place...

"What? No!"

...then in black as she kittens up to Richard Basehart before he goes out for a little foul play.

"What? Yes."

And mirrors are everywhere in her house. Metty films her in reflection, which adds to her distance from the men trying to manipulate her actions.


Which works well in a rather creepy way here...

Headless Lana and Tony holding his nose.
Yes, your acting stinks in this, it's true.

Anthony Quinn is clearly the weakest link in this movie. This is bar-none the worst acting of his career. Did he read the script? Was he distracted by the lights? You sit there watching and wondering what the hell happened to the guy from La Strada? Did he think he was too good for this one? It's crazy. He shifts everywhere between overwrought and totally absent. Honestly, you've got to admire Lana for continuing to pull the cart without his assistance. I says to the cousin/roommate, I says: "It would have been better with Cesar Romero." And I don't say that lightly.

"What the hell are you wearing, darling?"

Richard Basehart, on the other hand, is fantastically slimy as the jerky jerk who takes over Lloyd's business and then tries to take over his wife. He would have been much better in Quinn's role, but then we'd lose him as the scuzzy Howard and that would have been tragedy.

Que es mas cuter: Sandra Dee or a Mercedes SL 190 convertible?

Sandra Dee is cute as a button and she and Saxon make a nice couple. They actually look like they enjoy each others' company and it's sweet. It's too bad Saxon contracted on at Universal instead of MGM or Warner's where he might have taken the Robert Wagner track. He and Sandra Dee should have definitely made a few more movies together, I think, but it was not to be. Saxon was quickly replaced by Bobby Darin or John Gavin, and was better looking and a better actor than both of them. No. Really.

The sets are sometimes good, like this Chinese restaurant, which looks dark here, but it goes from their dark booth deep into the background. They're discussing how Saxon's father was run out of business while a fan dance carries on in the distance.


And then it's just God-awful with this funeral set atop a mound of Astro Turf with a clearly painted backdrop complete with painted people behind the actors. Add in fake rain and you've got a scene worthy of My Name is Khan.


Although I do admire the strange artwork they chose for the walls. This is Quinn's apartment --- the doctor raised up from his poor beginnings, the son of "Napa Valley fruit pickers". It's modern, kind of crappy, but with this great Dali-esque painting of a uvula dreamscape in the center.

Fur is murder -- whoops! spoiler

So, not entirely recommended unless you're high on cough medicine and have nothing else to do for the day.

Oh, wait! I was wrong. The titles were not the best part of the movie.

Two reasons to watch: Anna May Wong and Raja

The Siamese cat was the best part of the movie. He's even better than the cat in Mrs. Miniver and that animal could act.