Lust for Life **** (1958, Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, James Donald) – Classic Movie Review 2364

Director Vincente Minnelli’s 1958 portrait of the artist offered Kirk Douglas one of his three chances to win an Oscar but in the event he never won and had to be content with an honorary Oscar.

Douglas gives a particularly lusty performance in one of his most famous, resolute and deservedly admired roles as the brilliant but troubled artist Vincent van Gogh. But it is Anthony Quinn who grabbed the Best Supporting Actor Oscar as van Gogh’s fellow genius Paul Gaugin.

Minnelli’s colourful biopic is a typical picture of the archetypical tortured artistic genius and eventually surrenders to the fate of virtually all movie portraits of the artist. It goes all soapy and doesn’t quite ring entirely true. It’s a clue to this that Norman Corwin’s screenplay is based on a best-seller novel by Irving Stone rather than a biography.

Obsessed with painting and afflicted with mental illness, Van Gogh has an unhappy life of failure and unrewarding relationships, and manages to sell only one painting in his lifetime. On the plus side, he earns the respect of Paul Gauguin and has unwavering support from his brother Theo.

But, nevertheless, despite the ‘tortured genius’ clichés, the movie is thoroughly enjoyable, civilised and entertaining throughout. Apart from the two star performances, the best thing about it is the way it looks. It is beautifully photographed in widescreen in a suitably painterly way by British cinematographer Freddie Young, offering imaginative, inspired visuals. Unfortunately The Ansco color colour process used is unsuitable for long-term colour preservation and many prints have lost the extraordinary brightness of the movie’s original images.

It also helps that many of the locations used for filming were the actual locations van Gogh visited in his life. Parts of the film were shot in Auvers-sur-Oise, where he lived and died.

It was the third of three Oscar nominations for Douglas, after Champion (1949) and The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). But he never won and had to be content with an Honorary Academy Award in 1996 ‘for 50 years as a creative and moral force in the motion picture community’.

Also in the star cast are James Donald as Theo Van Gogh, Pamela Brown, Everett Sloane, Niall McGinnis, Noel Purcell, Henry Daniell, Madge Kennedy, Jill Bennett, Lionel Jeffries, Laurence Naismith, Eric Pohlmann, Jeanette Sterke, Wilton Graff, Isobel Elsom, David Horne, Noel Howlett, Ronald Adam.

The supporting cast includes Mickey Maga, Norman MacGowan, Fred Johnson, Alec Mango, Belle Mitchell, Jerry Bergen, Ernestine Barrie, Antony Eustrel, Anthony Sydes, Mitzi Blake, Marlon Ross, Rex Evans, Laurence Badie, Jay Adler, Frank Perls, David Bond, William Phipps, David Leonard, Julie Robinson and John Ruddock.

Douglas had his hair cut in the style of the artist and had it dyed to a similar reddish tint. Some of the older inhabitants of Auvers-sur-Oise believed that the real Van Gogh had returned!

Minnelli had a portion of a field spray-painted yellow to closer resemble van Gogh’s famous painting.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2364

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