Portrait in Black **½ (1960, Lana Turner, Anthony Quinn, Sandra Dee, John Saxon, Richard Basehart, Anna May Wong, Lloyd Nolan, Ray Walston, Virginia Grey ) – Classic Movie Review 10,254

Director Michael Gordon’s 1960 neo noir mystery crime thriller Portrait in Black is based on a play by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, and stars Lana Turner, Anthony Quinn, Sandra Dee, John Saxon, Richard Basehart, Lloyd Nolan, Ray Walston, Virginia Grey and Anna May Wong (in her final film).

Portrait in Black is an artificial, jumbled thriller, but with sleek, slick, suspenseful handling, committed performances and a glossy, polished finish, in which the lusty lady San Francisco socialite Sheila Cabot (Turner), dressed in gowns by Jean Louis and wearing jewels worth over $1.1 million, and her doctor boyfriend Dr David Rivera (Quinn) plot to bump off her rich, ailing, nasty husband, Matthew Cabot (Nolan).

Rivera (Quinn) finds it easy to do the dastardly deed because he is Nolan’s doctor, but someone knows the couple have done it and soon they are being blackmailed.

The whole rich and varied cast are up for it, but Sandra Dee is especially entertaining as Turner’s canny step-daughter, Cathy Cabot.

Portrait in Black is quite tolerable fun in its fake, escapist way – but it isn’t Hitchcock.

Also in the cast are Dennis Kohler, Elizabeth Chan, John Wengraf, John McNamara, George Womack and Paul Birch.

Ross Hunter provides the posh production. Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts write the screenplay.  Though based on their 1947 Broadway play, all the characters’ names are changed. The play premiered in London at the Piccadilly Theatre in 1946 and later opened on Broadway at the Booth Theatre, 222 West 45th Street, on 14 May 1947 and ran for 61 performances till 5 July 1947.

Film rights were sold to Universal Pictures for $100,000. Astonishingly, the authors secured a great deal – a sliding percentage of the film’s gross of up to 15 per cent at $2.5 million, plus, if a film was not released by 30 June 1950, the rights would revert to the authors who could keep the $100,000.

Diana Wynyard starred in the London production and her husband Carol Reed was set to direct the film version but he disagreed with Universal Pictures about how to adapt the play. On 30 June 1950, the project reverted to the authors, who then tried finance the film as a vehicle for Joan Crawford and James Mason.

Barbara Stanwyck and Richard Widmark starred in a one-hour adaptation on 2 March 1952.

It is the third and final screen teaming of Dee and Saxon, following The Reluctant Debutante (1958) and The Restless Years (1958), but more than 30 years later they starred together in the play Love Letters.

Quinn has the same surname Rivera in Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962) two years later.

Portrait in Black is directed by Michael Gordon, runs 112 minutes, is made by Ross Hunter Productions, is released by Universal Pictures (1960) (US) and Rank Film Distributors (1960) (UK), is written by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, is shot in Eastmancolor by Russell Metty, is produced by Ross Hunter, is scored by Frank Skinner and is designed by Richard H Riedel.

It is shot on location in and around San Francisco, including a sequence at Devil’s Slide on the Pacific Coast Highway, and in the studio at Universal Studios, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California.

It is released by Universal Studios Home Entertainment on DVD in Region 1 as a Lana Turner double feature with Madame X on 5 February 2008 and on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber on 28 May 2019.

It was a big hit, costing $1.4 million and taking $9.2 million at the box office.

Turner’s final starring role in Madame X (1966) earned her a David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actress.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,254

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