Portrait In Black (1960) Let us now remember, with a little bit of fondness, Universal Studio's Prince Of Gloss, producer Ross Hunter.....
As much as any celebrated film director, Hunter put his own personal stamp on his productions, which mostly consisted of slick romantic comedies and overheated melodramas.
Big stars. Bright colors. Sumptuous settings and wardrobes (for the leading men and ladies alike)....in other words, Hollywood glamour at its utmost.
Critics may have derided Hunter's output as trivial, escapist fluff but Hunter and Universal laughed all the way to the bank.......(especially with his all-star disaster movie, "Aiport")
Hunter, along with star Lana Turner, struck box office gold with 1959's now legendary weeper, "Imitation Of Life" and he hoped to catch lightning in a bottle again a year later with this movie.
Similar to his "Midnight Lace", produced in the same year with Doris Day toplining, "Portrait In Black" was a ridiculously overplotted mystery-suspense thriller, culminating in an over-the-top, idiotic attempt to emulate standard Hitchcock tropes. (See our post on "Midnight" from 12/30/21)
Whereas "Midnight" had audiences rooting and fearful for America's sweetheart Day as she's driven into hysteria by a stalker, "Portrait" offered Turner and a miscast Anthony Quinn as secret illicit lovers driven to murder. Quinn, usually cast as earthy, gruff characters of various ethnicities, looks uncomfortable and embarrassed in his attempts to simulate unbridled passion and lust.
Since Turner and Quinn play unsympathetic characters you really couldn't care less about, the film has to rev up the melodrama to absurd levels to generate an audience response.
And here's where the movie unintentionally shines. It's hilarious in the lunatic soap operatic heights it reaches.......
Yes, dead bodies pop as our crazy couple commences bumping people off who stand in the way of their being together.......but wait! Who's the anonymous letter-writer who knows what they're up to?
Is it Ray Walston as Turner's sleazy chauffer with a gambling problem? Or the legendary Asian star Anna May Wong (making her final film appearance before her death) as Turner's stoic, inscrutable maid. (You know she's inscrutable because the annoying music score noodles cartoonish 'orientalisms' every time she appears.)
Speaking of that ludicrous music, composer Frank Skinner scores the movie as if it were a Warner Brothers loony tune, there's not a solitary, single moment when it ever shuts up.
But here's what's not be missed: in a set piece that plays out like Hitchcock gone mad, the film has Quinn and Turner disposing of one of their victims in his own car, pushing it off a seaside cliff along the Pacific Coast highway. Turner's forced to drive behind Quinn in her own car, because he'll need a ride back after the stiff's car takes a swim.
Except Turner's character can't drive. After Quinn gives Turner a 10 second driving tutorial, off they go down that long, treacherous, oceanside curving road......at night. In the rain .And Turner, who can barely keep the car in the correct lane, doesn't know how to turn on the wipers either.....yikes!.
Honest, we're not making this up.
And this scene easily rivals the conclusion of "Midnight Lace" that featured a terrified Doris Day tightrope walking over building construction girders.......
And that's why we enjoyed the hell out of "Portrait In Black", a bona fide Guilty Pleasure if ever there was one. 3 stars (***) With Sandra Dee and John Saxon as the junior varsity contingent also appearing....)
(Special note: film buffs who remember Quinn and Richard Basehart together in Fellini's "La Strada" will appreciate the irony of their re-teaming here as well.....)
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