Reeling Backward: "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1945)

Most people know the parable of Dorian Gray without actually being aware of the story. I admit I wasn't.

Oscar Wilde's only novel has a great premise: a promising young man has his portrait painted, and wishes for eternal youth by having the passing of time reflected upon his artistic reflection rather than his actual visage. (A mysterious statue of a cat included in the painting is supposed to be the source of the charm.) As the years go by and people marvel at his unchanged appearance, Dorian hides the painting so no one will discover his secret.

But rather than being about just looking young, the real essence of the tale hinges upon Dorian's very soul. He engages in all sorts of terrible behavior, including drugs and debauchery, eventually leading up to murder. The portrait winds up looking like something hanging on the walls of Disney's Haunted Mansion -- a wild, leprous old man with lunatic eyes and blood on his hands.

Adapted by journeyman writer/director Albert Lewin, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" is a sort of Gothic horror melded with a cautionary note. It's a gorgeous-looking picture with terrific costumes and sets, earning an Oscar nomination for art direction and a win for Harry Stradling's cinematography, which is black-and-white except for the shots of the portraits, which are rendered in vivid Technicolor.

Hurd Hatfield portrays Dorian in his first starring role, which would end up defining his career. He deliberately plays the role with a nearly placid face, his powerful emotions being etched upon the painting rather than his face. Angela Lansbury also makes a bow in just her third screen credit, playing Dorian's doomed lady love, songstress Sybil Vane.

George Sanders got top billing as Lord Henry Wotton, a detestable nobleman who lives only for pleasure and to toy with others. (Think John Malkovich's character in "Dangerous Liaisons.") It is he who first plants the idea of an unchanging portrait in Dorian's mind, as well as serving as the film's narrator.

Dorian is a minor nobleman of about age 20. Blessed with wealth, independence and extraordinary good looks, he would seem to be set up for a happy life. When Wotton stumbles upon him, Dorian is being painted by their mutual friend, the good-hearted Basil Hallward (Lowell Gilmore). His young niece, Gladys, playfully adds her own "G" to Basil's signature upon the painting.

Years later she will grow into a beautiful young woman (played by Donna Reed) who is entirely ensorceled by Dorian and wants to marry him. He puts her off repeatedly, although eventually comes to see wedding her as his only chance to redeem himself.

His first love is Sybil, a singer in a low-rent carny show on London's seedier side. Given a front-row seat by the opportunistic emcee, Dorian becomes entranced by her rendition of "Little Yellow Bird," a lovely ditty about a free sparrow refusing a chance to enjoy love with a beautiful songbird if it means joining him in his golden cage. The song was written specifically for the film.

Lansbury is a wan, authentic presence, earning her own Academy Award nomination.

Dorian returns night after night, earning the enmity of Sybil's brother (Richard Fraser). But he proves his honorable intentions by proposing marriage, which shocks Wotton, Hallward and his other high-society connections. Wotton offers a test: insist that she stay the night with him and, if Sybil refuses, she is worthy of his name. At first she makes to go, and Dorian breaks a rare smile; but she returns, (presumably) they sleep together and he then dumps her.

She takes her own life, and this is when Dorian first notices a change in the portrait -- a bit of a cruel curve to the mouth. He pledges himself entirely to Wotton's ethos of self-indulgence, and the years fly by.

It being a 1945 film based on a book that was quite controversial in the 1890s, the movie is predictably circumspect about the nature of Dorian's debauchery. It shows him frequenting a lonely tavern on the wrong side of town, taking a sip of cherry while he wants for deformed servant to lead him to an unseen room upstairs. A mix of opium and sodomy, we presume.

The last part of the film is a bit messy plot-wise, introducing characters rather late in the game we're supposed to care about. One is Allen Campbell (Douglas Walton), an old school chum of Dorian's who has become a chemist. Dorian blackmails him to do his bidding with some embarrassing piece of information, but since we've just met the guy and the film offers no details on Campbell's past transgressions, it's heard to feel the weight of his guilt, or his later (off-screen) suicide.

There's also David (Peter Lawford, in a breakout role), playing Gladys' jealous other suitor, who eventually stumbles upon Dorian's secret.

Still, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" -- I always want to call it "Portrait" -- is a reasonably decent adaptation of a classic story. Even if it's one most people know only superficially.

Reeling Backward: "Man Hunt"

Boy, what a great movie "Man Hunt" could have been.

This 1941 historical thriller had a great concept: A famous British hunter takes a shot at Adolf Hitler before the outbreak of war, and then is hunted down by German thugs who want to make a political spectacle out of him. And it's directed by the great German filmmaker Fritz Lang ("Metropolis"), who was a master of mood and shadow.

Unfortunately, the film suffers from a series of bad missteps.

Start with the terrible performance by Walter Pidgeon, whose Alan Thorndike is a puckish rogue one minute, then a mournful victim the next, and finally a stalwart hero. There's no anguish to the man, so that even when the Nazis are beating him mercilessly or tracking Thorndike through the streets of London, we don't really feel his peril. Pidgeon was certainly no hack, but I think he was badly miscast in this movie.

The romance portion of the film also brings it to a dead stop every time Joan Bennett is onscreen, playing a Cockney girl who lends Thorndike a hand. She falls in love with him almost instantly, and keeps stubbornly insisting that he bring her along while he flees the Germans. He protests, but keeps giving in to the pouty, pathetic masher.

The Nazis, being no fools, eventually catch up with and kill her. I silently cheered.

There are some other nice supporting performances. George Sanders is great as a Nazi (who just happens to speak with a perfect British accent), wears a monocle (didn't all Germans?) and fashions himself to be a hunter the equal of Thorndike. And a very young Roddy McDowall has a neat turn as a cabin boy who smuggles Thorndike aboard his ship during his escape.

What "Man Hunt" does have is the visual genius of Fritz Lang. The great director seemed to command shadows to bend to his will, pooling in inky depths or slitting across an alley scene in a way that subtly throws everything into a creepy off-kilter slant.

The film's signature scene is when Thorndike flees into a subway tunnel while being chased by a never-named villain, played by John Carradine in a nearly wordless role. Dressed all in black, his famously spare frame and skull-like face looming, Carradine stalks Thorndike with a sword-cane. The way the circular maw of the tunnel envelops the villain is signature Lang, who had a talent for making inanimate objects take on a life of their own.

The opening sequence is quite gripping. Thorndike, a great hunter who has grown bored with killing animals, decides to conduct a "sporting stalk" of the most challenging game in the world: Hitler himself. He stealthily makes his way to Hitler's Bavarian chateau, carefully lines up a shot through his telescopic rifle sights, pulls the trigger and... nothing but a click. He's doing it merely to prove to himself that he can, throwing a little mock salute at the Fuhrer before starting to depart.

But then there's a great moment where he pauses, returns to his sights and loads a cartridge into his rifle. He's just starting to line up a live shot when a German soldier spots him and pounces on him.

Would Thorndike really have assassinated Hitler? If screenwriter Dudley Nichols, working from the novel by Geoffrey Household, had had a little more imagination, he would have made this the central question of the film -- Thorndike, who considers himself a gentleman, tortured by the notion that he could be just as murderous as the men now pursuing him.

"Man Hunt" is still a worthwhile film, if only to adore Fritz Lang's gorgeous black-and-white compositions, and to consider what might have been.

2.5 stars