The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)

Directed by Albert Luwin. Starring Hurd Hatfield, George Sanders, Lowell Gilmore, Angela Lansbury, Peter Lawford, Donna Reed, Richard Fraser, Douglas Walton, Miles Mander, Lydia Bilbrook, Morton Lowry, (voice) Cedric Hardwicke.

Film version of Oliver Wilde’s evocative Gothic novel of handsome and vain young libertine (Hatfield) whose portrait ages and corrupts as a mirror for his blackening heart while his own appearance remains the same. Sanders’ urbane cruelty and sad, doomed Lansbury highlight this visually striking telling; too bad that Hatfield is sometimes a cold, blank bore in his efforts to portray subtle, arrogant menace. Atmospheric spell is cast through good Victorian-era sets and costumes, Oscar-winning photography from Harry Stradling, and the famed painting, its vivid hideousness embellished by Technicolor inserts. Scripted by the director, with numerous changes made presumably to comply with the Production Code.

71/100