PORTRAIT OF JENNIE (1947)

In post-production for nearly a year, David O. Selznick, was a burnt-out case by the time principle shooting ended on what turned out to be his last Hollywood pic.  He continued, mostly as ‘backseat producer’ to new wife Jennifer Jones on a handful of projects, but was, at 45, essentially thru.  His legendary career a three-act/three-decade affair; leapfrogging from Paramount to RKO to M-G-M (first wife Irene, daughter to Louis B. Mayer, his two year son-in-law rises stint possibly his finest); then glorious independence (A STAR IS BORN; GONE WITH THE WIND; REBECCA); finally a delusional decade in thrall to Ms. Jones.  It makes this odd romantic fantasy both culmination & ruination; remarkably revealing psychologically with Joseph Cotten as a technically gifted, but underperforming painter who finds his artistic lifeline when he meets Jennifer Jones.  Just one problem: his muse is a phantom spirit from the past doomed to an early death a decade in the past.  Yikes!  Loaded with filler: Albert Sharpe & David Wayne, currently in FINIAN’S RAINBOW on B’way pretend to be in the plot; a Debussy arranged score to class things up (‘Girl With the Flaxen Hair’ an amusing choice for the brunette Ms. Jones); empty storm finale for a reel of ‘MagnaScope,’ TechniColor and D.W. Griffith showmanship.  (Even Lillian Gish to point the way.)  At least Ethel Barrymore gets to show off her ‘lioness eyes’ and buy a painting, but the plot vague enough to defeat its own trailer.*  Fortunately, playwright Paul Osborn manages to get what passes for a plot in some kind of order once Jones’s ghost grows out of childhood.  The film almost touchingly opaque as it tries to poetically figure out just what Selznick is looking for.  Director William Dieterle and cinematographer Joseph August gazing back at silent cinema for inspiration.  It could be Selznick’s own VERTIGO/’58, but with a dreamlike muse leading him not to a tower, but astray from his own talent.  Ironic, as Hitchcock was busy wrapping up his contract with Selznick at the same time on another mega-flop, THE PARADINE CASE/’47.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Attention paid by KINO quality control who placed the trailer for DUEL AT DIABLO/’66 on the DVD Extras when they meant to have Selznick/Jones’s DUEL IN THE SUN/’46.