This 1948 fantasy from Selznick Studios is definitely an a la "The Twilight Zone" production, (even if it was produced more than ten years before the far-fetched TV series.) William Dieterle is to be commended for his directing ability, the master musician Dimitri Tiomkin did well with the haunting music score, and it was dotted with a somewhat stellar cast, composed of Joseph Cotton, the outstanding veteran actress Ethel Barrymore, as well as the beautiful Jennifer Jones. The story line is very simple: an artist (played by Cotton) in depression-era New York cannot find any subject for a painting, until one day in Central Park he meets a young girl named Jennie Appleton, who is just a young school girl when he meets her. (Jennifer Jones did well playing different roles- as a young elementary school girl, a teen-ager as well as a lady in her twenties- and she was in her late twenties when the movie was produced.) Automatically, the 30's revert to a period at least a decade before this time. Not only is she a wonderful subject for one of his portraits, but in her twenties Jennie is definitely a lady with whom Cotton becomes madly in love. While the movie is surreal and has a rather sad ending, there is some sort of appeal to it. The producers dabbled well with color effects: there was a sepia tone in part of the movie, a green finish in another scene, a Technicolor scene at the very end of the movie, as well as the black-and-white in which the movie was filmed. The movie is, again, very drawing.
Review of Portrait of Jennie
