The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)

The Picture of Dorian Gray
Directed by Albert Lewin
Written by Albert Lewin based on the novel by Oscar Wilde
1945/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Lord Henry Wotton: “If I could get back my youth, I’d do anything in the world except get up early, take exercise or be respectable.”[/box]

Oscar Wilde’s novel gets the MGM treatment. Features the quintessential George Sanders performance and a very sweet bit by Angela Lansbury.

Dorian Gray (Hurd Hatfield) is a callow, impressionable but beautiful youth when Lord Henry Wotton (Sanders) spots him sitting for his portrait being painted by his artist friend.  Wotton promptly starts filling the boy with aesthetic ideas about living for the moment during the few years allowed by youth.  Dorian ponders this and says he would give his soul if he could stay young while his portrait aged.  We soon find out that his wish has been granted.

Dorian starts out small by chasing innocent music hall singer Sybil Vane (Lansbury) and asking her to marry him.  Wotton convinces him to test her virtue by threatening to abandon her unless she spends the night with him.  She fails the test and he drives her to her suicide.

The story proceeds as Dorian sinks into the depths of some unnamed degradation while maintaining an angelic young exterior. One murder and another suicide later, Dorian escapes vengeance by Sybil’s brother.  The one good deed of his life will prove to be not marrying his cousin Gladys Hallward (Donna Reed).  With Peter Lawford as Gladys’s admirer and Sir Cedric Hardwick narrating the tale.

This movie works well for me until Angela Lansbury leaves it about half way through. Then, despite the more lurid goings on in the second half, it kind of runs out of steam.  I blame in part Lewin’s insistence that Hatfield maintain a completely blank expression.  It is just impossible to either care what happens to him or to really hate him.  The production values are what one would expect from MGM.  Hearing George Sanders spout cynical bon mots non-stop is worth the price of admission.

The DVD has a good commentary from a film scholar and Lansbury.

The Picture of Dorian Gray won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Harry Stradling Sr.).  (We get some flashes of color at different reveals of the portrait.)  Angela Lansbury was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar and the film was nominated for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWwLuepw3G4

Trailer