Blu-ray rates: Posts about Portrait of Jennie written by borgeditor. Tiomkin likely handed the details to his own orchestrating and arranging team. As tons of water smashes them against the rocks, they exchange tidy verbal nuggets of pat romantic wisdom. One of the most unusual romances ever filmed, Portrait of Jennie is a picture of sumptuous perfection. Cast; Crew; Details; Genres; Cast. The revised movie begins without a title or credits, but by the time Joseph Cotten’s welcome V.O. Anne Francis is a dead ringer for herself, nobody doubts that. Trick Technicolor inserts of this kind had recently been the domain of producer-director Albert Lewin, a man who shared Selznick’s elevated tastes. Before the film proper begins, the title is announced by the narrator (after delivering a spoken prologue, he says, “And now, ‘Portrait of Jennie'”). Selznick raved about the miracle of Magnascope, a grossly expensive presentation gimmick that was likely seen in only two premiere venues in April of 1949, the Carthay Circle in Los Angeles and the Rivoli in New York. All Rights Reserved. The movie has its excesses, but it is all of a piece. Starring: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Cecil Kellaway, David Wayne, Albert Sharpe. . The problem is all the opticals and dissolved scenes, which are already optical dupes of reduced quality. A struggling artist meets a young girl in a park and the mystery of Portrait of Jennie begins. It must have been the wrong movie in the wrong year, for it has been charming viewers — mostly TV viewers — for decades. Portrait of Jennie (1948) ... 'The House Next Door' Meet the Balcks 2 Trailer 'F9' Featurette - Car-nage 'A Quiet Place Part II' Final Trailer 'Benny Loves You' Clip: Play With Benny. Most of the special exhibition ballyhoo gimmicks that he’d later invent for his horror films are much more practical. Original Music: Dimitri Tiomkin, also adapting themes from Claude Debussy; Bernard Herrmann Who knows — could this have been Alfred Hitchcock’s inspiration for the unexplained shafts of colored light that ghost over Kim Novak in Vertigo? / Street Date October 24, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 We’re highly receptive to her advice to the lovelorn artist, as well as the romantic musings of her business partner in the art gallery, Mr. Matthews. One of the most haunting love stories ever to come from Hollywood, it improves on the poetic Robert Nathan novella it’s based on. Glenn is grateful for Trailers From Hell’s generous offer of a guest reviewing haven for CineSavant. What is Death? He had to set aside The Paradine Case for lack of time. Her coquettishness and immaturity are engaging, while her adult incarnation embodies romance like a goddess fallen to Earth. The radiantly beautiful Jones and the melancholy Cotten make a sublimely attractive couple, and the intense romanticism survives all the meandering detours of the plot. Soon after the elderly art dealer Miss Spinney (Ethel Barrymore) buys one of Eben’s uninspired drawings, real inspiration arrives. Bunce. Obsessive producer David O. Selznick fussed over this metaphysical celebration of wife Jennifer Jones for years before finally releasing it in 1948 to dismal boxoffice returns. It’s one of those peculiar pictures that either melts one’s heart or doesn’t. Other sidebar scenes are less appealing. Selznick attempted to give Portrait of Jennie the sheen of high art by having noted screenwriter and playwright Ben Hecht (Notorious, 1946) write the foreword scroll to Jennie. At the end I was hoping that Howarth would resolve another issue about Jennie, but he repeats without comment the oft-told identification of the three teenaged school girls that admire the finished title portrait. Blu-ray ‘That obscure object of desire?’. He had optioned the Robert Nathan story at least as early as 1944. These appear to be last-minute looped additions. Produced by David O. Selznick Even David Lean in Doctor Zhivago has to fall back on symbolism, with blasts of balalaika music and giant flowers & snowflakes to take the place of written poetry. One day, after he finally finds someone to buy a painting from him, a pretty but odd young girl named Jennie Appleton appears and strikes up an unusual friendship with Eben. After a filming start in February of 1947, Selznick was unhappy with much of the material he was getting, and frustrated by bad weather. Looming in perspective, a little-girl silhouette becomes a young woman, in the flesh. Menu. Directed by William Dieterle. But he’s most proud of finding the lost ending for a famous film noir, that few people knew was missing. In a thick 459 pages, British author Daniel Godfrey begins a new time travel series full of twists and turns in New Pompeii, his first novel from a major publisher (Titan Books). Fiddlesticks. Ben Hecht must have laughed all the way to the bank, to cash the check for his ponderous opening narration: “Since the beginning, Man has looked into the awesome reaches of infinity and asked the eternal questions: What is time? In 1950 he reissued it as Tidal Wave, to no great acclaim. Totally enchanting, Jennie engages Eben in a conversation that doesn't sit quite right with the time, then after singing him a haunting little tune she vanishes as quickly as she had appeared. Jennifer Jones (Duel in the Sun) and Joseph Cotten (Since You Went Away) star in this tender and poetic tale that is enthralling from … 1948 Directed by William Dieterle. There are excellent location shots of 1940's New York City and it's various areas of interest. Lillian Gish has little to do but spout quasi-reverent lines, more than the story needs. The Portait of Jennie, which we see in all it's glory at film's end, could well be a masterpiece in itself as a painting of the beautiful Jennifer Jones. It never did, which is probably why that scene is printed rather dark. “ will turn average romantics into mush. Awards & Events. It’s loaded with the film’s plot outline, trivia, trailer, photos & more. He finds something totally irrational in his life, and instead of denying it accepts and worships it for what it is. We get actor filmographies but no quotes from Selznick’s abundant memos. It doesn’t take much imagination or story analysis to theorize that the phantom Jennie is very likely a romantic projection of Barrymore’s Miss Spinney character. He rushes to the rocks below a storm-tossed Cape Cod lighthouse to keep a rendezvous with his ghostly lover. After saying all that, I must emphasize that on the romantic level IT ALL WORKS — the music, the visuals and our beautiful lovers come together in a climax worthy of an expressionist silent film. The climax was rewritten to accommodate a monstrous tidal wave. What is space? Eben meets Jennie Appleton (Jennifer Jones), a kid playing alone in a gloomy, spooky Central Park. Crowther’s review said plenty that Selznick didn’t want to hear: ’embarrassing,’ ‘far-fetched,’ ‘maudlin and banal,’ ‘ponderous and meaningless,’ ‘soggy and saccharine,’ ‘deficient and disappointing in the extreme.’ Did Crowther wander into the wrong screening? This is the closest that ’40s Hollywood came to the delirious surrealism of Henry Hathaway’s Peter Ibbetson, a flavor of fantasy not in keeping with the national mood. 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