I was recently read a book about the making of the movie Airplane!, even though I’m not that film’s biggest fan. One of the main takeaways for me from Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane! is how most of the humor that works best in the film is due to it being played completely straight. Much of the dialog is verbatim from the ridiculous 1957 drama Zero Hour!, and it is amazing how funny something from a serious film can be when presented in a slightly skewed manner.
I wonder what the results would be if somebody took a similar approach to parodying 1960’s Portrait in Black. This melodrama takes itself so seriously that it openly invites mockery. There are some scenes here, especially towards the end, which had me laughing more than I have at some intentional comedies I’ve seen recently.
The funniest of these moments is when Anthony Quinn insists Lana Turner follow him as he drives a car they need to dispose of. Turner, who we earlier saw begging her husband (Lloyd Nolan) to let her get a driver’s license, is paralyzed with fear while looking at the car dashboard. So, this is somebody who wanted to drive at one time, who I assume had have some exposure to driving (however miniscule), and is now mortified at the prospect of slowly tailing a vehicle driven by somebody she knows. It isn’t like she has to shadow somebody who is going to try to lose her. And the car even has an automatic transmission! She so mortified by the dashboard that one would think she was an ordinary person who suddenly has to defuse a bomb. If the car had been a manual transmission, I imagine her head would have exploded like that poor guy in Scanners.
Almost as funny as this is Quinn’s doctor later experiencing a crisis of conscience when he glances at the Hippocratic Oath hanging on his office wall. I’m always suspicious of doctor’s who put this on their walls, since it seems strange to me anybody who need a reminder of things that are basic ethics. But it appears he needs it as a reminder, and we get to hear the entire goddamn thing in voiceover, as recorded by somebody in the world’s most severe echo chamber. This scene could have been revealed to have been an ad for a headache remedy and I’m not sure I would have blinked.
Quinn has good reason to be suffering. This seemingly otherwise intelligent man killed Nolan so he could be with Turner. He does this instead of taking a planned job overseeing a clinic in Switzerland. Once her husband is dead, he sticks around instead of leaving for the job everybody knows he was going to take. This immediately raises suspicions, especially with Richard Basehart, who had been Nolan’s right-hand man in the operation of a an extremely lucrative shipping firm.
Basehart is a truly nasty character and, despite not killing anybody in this film, is the real villain of the piece. His deceased employer’s body is barely cold when he starts putting the moves on Turner, presumably with an interest that is more financial than romantic. He prevents John Saxon from acquiring the operation, which Nolan had promised the young tug boat captain. It is later revealed Basehart even drove Saxon’s dad to commit suicide, when everybody believed it was Nolan behind that. It’s no surprise it is eventually decided Basehart needs to be eliminated. As Quinn tells Turner at one point: “You can trap a fox. A wolf is more dangerous. A wolf, you have to kill.”
One of the great many things I found odd about this film is Saxon is romantically involved with Sandra Dee, as Nolan’s daughter from a previous marriage. That must be a tad awkward getting cozy with the daughter of the man you believe drove your father to asphyxiate himself. Could it be one of them is sending Turner the anonymous letters saying they know she committed murder?
Almost everybody in this is a potential suspect for the writer of these poison pen letters. Ray Walston is effectively creepy as a chauffer who barely conceals his spite behind his obsequious manner. Anna Mae Wong is a housekeeper who always seems to vaguely disapprove of whatever Turner is doing at any given time. Heck, even the young son of the family (Dennis Kohler), is jokingly floated as a candidate, in a conversation between him and Walston, which is the only intentional laugh in the film. The chauffer asks Kohler, “Who would dare tamper with the U.S. mail?” The young boy dramatically looks sideways in one direction and then the other before shouting, “ME!” I never thought I would say this, but here’s a kid who should have been in a movie more than the scant minutes in which he appears.
Otherwise, this is a very dreary affair, except for all the unintentional humor. It is even a curiously dark film in appearance, such as a moment where Turner cuts through a department store to catch a cab to see Quinn in secret. I find real-world footage in places like that to be a fascinating time capsule, but it’s too dark here to really see anything. At least that was a real location in a film that is overwhelmingly set-bound. Even Nolan’s funeral is on a set, as if they couldn’t find a small patch of land anywhere to stage one.
The opening credits of Portrait in Black correctly suggest the kind of bombastic picture we’re about to experience. Given how so many scenes are on sets (including ones it made no sense to shoot in a studio), it’s no surprise this is based on a play. There are credits for gowns by somebody and jewels provided by somebody else. There’s even credits for oil paintings on loan from some gallery. But who was responsible for the lousy image quality, so dark and so muted that the picture is almost monochromatic? That would be Pathe. I can only assume there wasn’t enough room on the title card to add the letters “t”, “i” and “c”.
Dir: Michael Gordon
Starring Lana Turner, Anthony Quinn, Richard Basehart
Watched on Kino Lorber blu-ray