I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

High camp and a load of old tosh. Ross Hunter's production of "Portrait in Black" is one of his lesser efforts and that's saying something. Lana Turner and Anthony Quinn (badly miscast) are the adulterous lovers who murder her rich husband, Lloyd Nolan, and are then plagued by a 4th party who seems to know what they did. Since Nolan was something of a louse your sympathies are initially with his killers, at least until they start to screw up and go off the rails. Others involved in this decidedly OTT mystery include Richard Basehart, Sandra Dee, John Saxon, Ray Walston and that siren of the silent screen Anna May Wong. Of course, it's terrible but not unenjoyable in a bad-movie kind of way.

Directed by Michael Gordon, Produced by Ross Martin, based on a play and adapted to the screen by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, this crime melodrama is filled with all the right tawdry drama and campy dialog that makes watching films from the fabulous 60′s so much fun!Starring Lana Turner as Sheila Cabot a woman who is married to a dying shipping magnate Matthew Cabot ( Lloyd Nolan). Anthony Quinn portrays Dr. David Rivera, Matthew Cabot's attending physician. The wealthy couple live in a sumptuous home in San Francisco.Sheila and the good Doctor, begin having an affair, and soon after their sparks fly , the lovers decide to murder Sheila's nasty yet, terminally ill husband. But as often the way these juicy tales of murder and passion go, someone knows the lovers have killed off the rich old Cabot, and begins blackmailing them.Sandra Dee plays Cathy, Cabot's daughter from his first marriage. Richard Basehart is Howard Mason, Cabot's greedy business partner. John Saxon plays Blake Richards, the chauffeur, who is pursuing Cathy, and Ray Walston, Virgina Grey and Anna May Wong fill out the cast of dubious characters, all of whom might be the 'one' who knows about their crime!Oh the flashy melodramatics, Oh Turner's wardrobe!

Portrait in Black (1960)In a beautifully drippy, bleeding, sticky Douglas Sirk mode, and one year after leading lady Lana Turner appeared in Sirk's "Imitation of Life," this highly slick and artificial (and yet moving) melodrama is one of the high points in a low period of Hollywood. The other main character is Anthony Quinn, who is remarkable, too, one of those underrated leading men, I'm not sure why. The two of them are supported by Richard Basehart as a fascinating and chilling underling with a peculiar mysterious cheerfulness, and Sandra Dee, who plays the spoiled daughter all too well (as you can imagine).Unlike Sirk's dramas, this one, directed by is not just about normal human dramas (soap opera stuff), but adds a criminal and suspense element that kicks in after half an hour. The throbbing music takes on a different meaning here, and the sobbing and regrets make for an intense ride.The deeper you get into this movie, the deeper the plot gets, with intrigue and worry and more murder mounting. And it's all filmed with fluid, rich, widescreen color photography, with intensely rendered music (that holds nothing back), and with a subtle kind of attention to nuance that oddly adds to the excesses of the plot.And it's the plot, the story, that is so finely tuned it sustains all this cinematic swaying. It's not like some movies where the music or the photography drives the plot--here they are woven together really well, artfully and emphatically. Quinn and Turner are both extraordinary, lifting what could have been a soap opera to something completely fuller.Russell Metty, behind the camera, was at the peak of his career, having shot not only "Imitation of Life" the year before but Sirk's early "Written on the Wind" (and moving on quickly to several masterpieces like "Spartacus" and "The Misfits"). And in fact the composer, veteran Frank Skinner, wrote the music for those two classic Sirk films, as well. It's worth stressing all this because Sirk has a huge (and deserved) following, and I have a feeling this one is just under the radar of Sirk fans. If a great Sirk film seems to almost reference itself the way it becomes so perfectly "arch" in its stereotypes, "Portrait in Black" does maintain a sense of being still a film wanting to move a plot idea along (these are subtle differences about style becoming affectation on purpose). But even so, the parallels are extraordinary, and this is a remarkable movie on those terms. It's worth wondering what else, beyond Sirk, was going on around this time, and in fact, with the murder and suspense here it helps to look at Hitchcock's films "North by Northwest" (1959) and "Vertigo" (1958). Both are clearly influences in filming style, lacking only that higher level of stylized artfulness (and storytelling) that Hitch was by then such a master of. Or then, you might say, there was perhaps the influence of Sirk on Hitchcock, at least in the visual richness and fluidity (something Hitch abandoned immediately, almost making a point, this very year with "Psycho").Anyway, if you don't mind an over the top melodrama done to perfection, here you go. And for movie fans, check out Anna May Wong's last film appearance (not a great performance, but she's her own legend). See it on the biggest screen you can, too--this doesn't translate well at all to a laptop experience.

Ms. Turner, enjoying a career renaissance kicked off by the combination of her Oscar-nominated role in "Peyton Place," the Stompanato murder case and the extraordinary success of "Imitation of Life," reteamed with producer Ross Hunter here as another well-to-do beauty suffering great duress. She plays the wife of cantankerous Nolan (who was the noble doctor in "Peyton Place"), a successful shipping magnate confined to a mechanical bed. His inherent bitterness leads him to lash out at Turner, who turns to his handsome doctor Quinn for comfort. When it becomes clear that they can never truly be together as a couple, they decide to relieve Nolan of his pain for good, but soon after they begin to get letters that hint of blackmail. Before long, they are faced with the prospect of committing a second murder in order to protect their secret. Meanwhile, shifty Basehart is running the company and eyeing Turner and Nolan's daughter Dee (who was Turner's daughter in "Imitation of Life") is carrying on with low-rung tugboat owner Saxon. Also, sneaky chauffeur Walston and vaguely threatening housekeeper Wong lurk around every other corner. Turner looks terrific throughout most of the film, being saddled with a couple of ugly hats here and there (and :::gasp::: wearing one outfit twice!), but generally looking fantastic. She was perfect at these types of glossy, over-the-top melodramas and this is among the best. The story (riddled with contrivance and preposterousness) reaches a fever pitch several times and overwrought Lana is right there to help serve it up at its best. Quinn seems a tad out of place, but it's nice to see him in a film from this period that didn't have him playing an Indian, a slave, a fisherman or some other type of earthy character. Basehart is remarkably slimy, Dee a bit more mature than she had been in previous films, yet still unable to shake off her squeaky-clean image and Saxon gritting his teeth in outrage when he isn't trying to canoodle with Dee. Walston gives an appropriately mysterious performance while silent film legend Wong is mostly relegated to stern stares and curt comments. Grey has a supporting role as Nolan's beleaguered secretary, while fairly grating child actor Kohler plays Turner's inquisitive son. Based on a short-running Broadway play from the 40's, but slathered over with the customary Hunter lavishness, this slightly overlong film is a glimmering camp hoot today. As if the overheated acting, silly script and glitzy décor weren't enough, there is a deliriously insane Frank Skinner score punctuating every "nuance" of the plot. At least there is some very creative, for the time, lighting and camera-work in evidence, giving the picture a nourish feel at times (which is quite an accomplishment considering all the gloss in view.) Highlights of the film include: Turner running open-armed to Quinn in his apartment, Turner, decked out in a purposefully drab gown, watching Quinn enter the house to kill Nolan, Turner running around the house and up and down stairs in her snug skirt, turning off lights and panicking and, most especially, Turner confessing that she can't drive and then being forced to operate an unfamiliar car on the Pacific Coast Highway during a hysterical rainstorm! Yes, it's basically her show all the way right up to the closing frames.