89. The Picture of Dorian Gray

Albert Lewin, 1945

Oscar Wilde’s novella, The Picture of Dorian Gray, is one of the finest books I have ever read and is certainly one of the most beautifully written. Ever word, ever sentence is perfect. In my experience, there is really only one other book like it, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. In each case it is not so much the plot or the characters I love, although both Dorian Gray and Lolita have fantastic plots and memorable characters, but the very written word which sets them apart. This is why I think I have always found Kubrick’s Lolita so disappointing. It is a decent movie, make no mistake, but it simply cannot capture, by the very intrinsic differences between film and printed word, the true soul of the novel. Because of this, I was convinced that no adequate film adaptation of Lolita could ever exist. This assumption then extended to The Picture of Dorian Gray by the same logic. Sure, a film could capture the plots and the characters, but if even Kubrick could not capture the beauty of Lolita’s mechanics, how could someone else. Well, the 1945 Universal production of The Picture of Dorian Gray does the impossible. The plot and the characters are well intact, thanks in no small part from excellent performances, particularly from Hurd Hatfield as Dorian and a young Angela Landsbury, who received a supporting actress nomination. Further, the world of Dorian Gray is expertly captured with inspired period costumes and production design. No attempt is made to remove Dorian Gray from its Victorian settings, unlike common film adaptations of Sherlock Holmes stories, including the Basil Rathbone features (Moriarity working for the Nazis? Come on.), or Universal’s own adaptations of Victorian classics like The Invisible Man.

What truly sets this film apart though is a clear understanding of the beauty of Wilde’s written word and a desire to match it with the unique mechanics of film. That is to say, the filmmakers, and I’ll single out director Albert Lewin and especially cinematographer Harry Stradling here, approach the beauty of Wilde’s prose with the beauty of the camera work. The cinematography here is simply remarkable, particularly for the period. The camera is completely uninhibited, indulging in several absolutely stunning tracking shots and creating some of the finest black and white compositions I have ever seen. Indeed, the picture won the oscar for best black and white cinematography that year. I would even go so far as to say that the photography here approaches the brilliance of The Third Man, regarding black and white cinematography. Yet, it seems as though no one has seen the film. I am not sure why. It certainly has its champions; Turner Classic Movies in particular regularly champions it as a great forgotten film. I would guess that there is a combination of things at play. One is that the film is probably dismissed as being just another of the Universal Horror Cycle, and a late entry without a suitable monster at that, released long after the glory days of Whale’s Frankenstein or Browning’s Dracula. The other is film scholarship’s bullheaded adherence to auteurist theory. After all, neither Lewin nor Stradling appear to have ever made anything as remarkable as this. Regardless of the reason, this is a film that deserves much more exposure.

A final note, the picture is in black and white, but technicolor sequences are used for all the shots of the portrait itself. This could easily have turned out cheesy, but the result is very effective, separating the portrait into a semi-mystical film space all its own.