Search - Portrait of Jennie on DVD

MPAA Rating: NR Content Advisory: Questionable for Children Movie Release: 1948 DVD Release: 11/28/2000 Format: DVD - Black and White,Pan and Scan Audio Tracks: English SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 26 mins Studio: Anchor Bay Members Wishing: 11 Genres: Drama, Fantasy, Romance, Romantic Fantasy See Also: Portrait of Jennie

In Portrait of Jennie, Joseph Cotten plays an artist, Eben Adams, who is unable to bring any true feeling to his work. While painting in Central Park one morning, Eben makes the acquaintance of a schoolgirl named Jennie (Jennifer Jones), who prattles on about things that happened years ago. Intrigued at her thorough knowledge of the past, Eben is about to converse with her further, but Jennie has vanished. Over the next few months, Eben meets Jennie again and again -- and each time she seems to have aged by several years. He paints her portrait, which turns out to be more full of expression and emotion than anything he's previously done. His curiosity peaked by Jennie's enigmatic nature, Eben uncovers evidence that he has been conversing -- and falling in love -- with the ghost of a girl who died years earlier in a hurricane. On the eve of the hurricane's anniversary, Eben rushes to meet Jennie at the site where she was supposedly killed. As a new storm rages, Jennie vanishes for good, but not before declaring that the love she and Eben have shared will live forever. Rescued from the storm, Eben convinces himself that Jennie was a mere figment of his imagination. Then he notices that he stills clutches her scarf in his hand. He looks at his portrait of Jennie (the only Technicolor shot in this otherwise black-and-white film) and understands what she meant when she said that their love would endure throughout eternity; it will do so through Cotten's art, both the portrait at hand and all future portraits. Based on the novel by Robert Nathan, Portrait of Jennie is one of the most beautifully assembled fantasies ever presented onscreen. Producer David O. Selznick's unerring eye for "rightness" enabled him to select the perfect stars, supporting cast (Lillian Gish, Ethel Barrymore, David Wayne, Cecil Kellaway, et al.), director, cinematographer (Joseph August), and composer (Dimitri Tiomkin, who based his themes on the works of Debussy), and blend everything into one ideally balanced package. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Joseph Cotten - Eben Adams
Jennifer Jones - Jennie Appleton
Ethel Barrymore - Miss Spinney
David Wayne - Gus O'Toole
Florence Bates - Mrs. Jekes the Landlady
Lillian Gish - Mother Mary of Mercy
Cecil Kellaway - Mr. Matthews

There aren't ten movies in the whole history of Hollywood that are as haunting, beguiling, and delicately textured as William Dieterle's Portrait of Jennie. Shot primarily in New York during 1947 and part of 1948, the 86-minute movie -- based on Robert Nathan's novel of the same name -- cost nearly as much to make as Gone With the Wind; it seemed pure folly, except that it did solidify the romance between producer David O. Selznick and its star, Jennifer Jones, culminating in their marriage. And while not a success on its initial release, this romantic ghost story has aged beautifully, mostly by virtue of the performances by the entire cast and the gossamer-textured mood invoked by director Dieterle and cinematographer Joseph August, who captured New York City through a dreamlike mist by way of extraordinary location shots. Joseph Cotten plays a destitute artist in 1934, who finds his inspiration and the great love of his life in a series of encounters with Jennifer Jones, who appears to him in steadily older guises, from a little girl to a grown woman, and proves to be the ghost of a girl who died unloved decades earlier. Scored to the music of Claude Debussy (as adapted by Dimitri Tiomkin, the story takes on a hauntingly romantic, dreamlike quality, essentially a modern-day fable set in New York. The DVD is the first disc-format appearance of the movie -- a planned laserdisc in the late '80s was cancelled because the existing master materials were inadequate. No such problem exists on the Anchor Bay DVD. The master materials are a match for the best 35 mm theatrical print that this reviewer has ever seen (and he has seen many, including archival prints). The cinematography displays a beguiling chiaroscuro effect, as though one were watching a painting in motion in many of the most enchanting sequences, while shots of a more literal nature glow with the silvery sheen of a fine nitrate print perfectly transferred. The final 12 minutes of the movie are the first in any home-viewing format (including television broadcasts) to properly capture the tinting in the storm sequence, and the final shot -- the visual and emotional capstone to the entire picture -- never looked better. The audio quality is also superior to any video version of the film previously released, with the richness of Tiomkin's rescoring of Debussy's music coming through in all of its details. These technical virtues allow one to appreciate the vision that Selznick was striving to realize, as well as the beauty of Jennifer Jones and of the performances, especially the work of Ethel Barrymore in one of her very best roles. The disc is programmed to start without going to the menu, and the film is broken down into 28 well-selected chapters. The trailer is also fascinating as a demonstration of just how difficult this movie was to synopsize in a couple of minutes -- it emphasizes more comedy than the film actually had, while hinting at the strange and mysterious ghost story that it actually was. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide