Guilty Pleasures: Portrait in Black

1960 Drama
From Universal
Directed by Michael Gordon

Starring
Lana Turner
Anthony Quinn
Richard Basehart
Sandra Dee
John Saxon
Ray Walston
Anna May Wong
Virginia Grey
Lloyd Nolan

As the mosaic came into focus it seemed obvious that producer Ross Hunter needed to concentrate more on a coherent story, rid the film of the cornball add-ons and fire Lana Turner.  Oh, have I come on too strong?  

Actually I was always entertained with certain aspects.  I love murder stories.  I was bonkers at the time over John Saxon and Sandra Dee, had then and now an affinity for movies that take place in San Francisco and I always liked Hunter's penchant for glamming up his films.  But seriously, this thing just went off the rails.

At the center of the story is a wealthy woman (Turner) who is having an affair with her invalid husband's doctor (Quinn).  He has decided the relationship is wearing on him and he tells her that he will be moving out of the country.  She has the first of her hysterical crying jags and he is persuaded to hang in there.  He brings up the idea of killing her mean husband which she at first opposes but realizes that without doing it, the doctor will again decide to leave.  He tells her that he could inject the husband (Nolan) with something that is virtually undetectable.  And so it goes.

Then something happens that allows the mystery to deepen.  The couple becomes a target of someone who apparently knows what they did, the result of which sends them into paroxysms of weakness and bad behavior.

Living in the house with her is her young son with Nolan, Nolan's daughter (Dee) from a prior marriage, a chauffeur (Walston) and a maid (Wong).  Except for the boy, all could be the person tormenting the couple with notes in the mail.  Walston and Wong are particularly effective in their suspiciously sneaky roles.

Quinn then jumps to the conclusion that Nolan's business associate (Basehart) is the one they're looking for because he, too, is in love with Turner.  Quinn decides to kill him as well by shooting him from his car as Basehart drives past.  But Basehart sees the gun sticking out the window, speeds up and avoids being shot.  He then drives to Turner's mansion and comes to suspect her of being involved somehow.  They play a curious game which is one of my favorite parts of the movie.  Quinn, however, enters the home and after an argument with Basehart, kills him.

For some undeveloped reason, Quinn decides to dump Basehart's body over a cliff in his car.  There is no reason for choosing this action especially when one considers that Quinn drives Basehart's car to the site with Turner following in the family car so that she can bring Quinn back.  And since Turner doesn't know how to drive, the makers want to make this scene fraught with drama when in actuality I, at least, was saying what in the hell is going on?

When the car goes over the cliff, Turner is absolutely hysterical, far more so than when she actually witnesses Basehart's killing.  If Quinn were smart, he'd have thrown her over the cliff as well.

The next day, another menacing note arrives.  Oh-oh.

There shortly comes a part where Dee suspects that Turner is implicated in her father's death and that Turner must have had a boyfriend to help her.  Then what does Dee do?  One would think she might go to the police but noooo.  Or, duh, how about involving her boyfriend (Saxon).  She decides to mention it to Quinn.  He, of course, becomes more unglued, and their meeting sets up the film's finale.

We mustn't lay the rest of it out here (this is a murder mystery, after all, not Singin' in the Rain) but I admit I hadn't seen the revelation coming.  And frankly, I was disappointed.

Portrait in Black had been an English stage play and later appeared briefly on Broadway.  When Universal originally purchased the property, it was hoped Joan Crawford and James Mason would star.  There were many behind-the-scenes machinations going on concerning how the screenplay was to be structured.  Funny, it's the structure that's missing here.

What might have turned out to be a neo-noir became a whole other kind of movie when Ross Hunter got involved.  He loved glamour and he loved older female stars.  Since the female star he chose here also loved glamour, it was a slam dunk that this movie's dramatic possibilities would give way to its standing and modeling allure.

Universal had three popular blondes in its midst.  Doris Day was one of them and the other two are in this film.  These two had also appeared together in a wildly popular film the year before, Imitation of Life, and Hunter was looking to repeat that success.  It most certainly didn't happen although Black was more popular with the public than it was with critics.

I know there are those who noticed Turner's and Dee's costumes and the jewels and the hairdos, but what else?  Did anyone wonder why no faces got wet during a screaming downpour at a funeral?  How about when Turner and Quinn voiced their concerns about getting caught together when they were outside?  Am I the only one who asked why not go inside?  Why did these characters fall apart so after their exploits?  Aren't murderers more hardened than these two?  Why does every character say the name of the person he or she is talking to so much?  Do two people, talking alone, say the other person's name 10 times?  Toward the end when Quinn is really going bonkers, who came up with a voiceover of the Hippocratic Oath?  How corny can they get?

Turner was an actress who needed a strong director and Michael Gordon, probably still in a pink, fluffy mood from doing Pillow Talk, was definitely not the one.  She wasn't acting, she was overacting, hysterical and embarrassing.  I noted she only gave the film a short paragraph in her autobiography and Quinn, in his own book, doesn't mention it at all.  And what an unusual role for him... in a suit and tie.

Dee and Saxon were paired for the third and final time.  Their performances aren't particularly noteworthy as they're not given much to do.  Never a huge fan of Basehart, he did a good job here.  Walston and Wong (in her final screen performance) were exactly as some characters should be in a mystery... mysterious.

The writing, in large part, is not what it should have been.  It's hard to believe the screenplay was written by the same two men who wrote the play.  A little more judicious editing couldn't have done any harm.  To its credit, the film, of course, has a beautiful look. 

If you've come to the conclusion that this guilty pleasure is more guilt than pleasure, you'd be correct but with all I've said, let's just add that some bad movies do provide pleasure and this is one of them.

Here's a trailer:

Next posting:
An actor who ran with the mob