PORTRAIT IN BLACK

US, 1960, 113 minutes, Colour.
Lana Turner, Anthony Quinn, Sandra Dee, John Saxon, Lloyd Nolan, Richard Basehart, Ray Walston.
Directed by Michael Gordon.

Portrait in Black is an entertaining glossy thriller, produced by Ross Hunter, famous at Universal for his plush touch and the appeal of his films, especially to a female audience of the 50s and 60s. It was a Lana Turner vehicle, teamed with an unlikely Anthony Quinn. It came from a period in Lana Turner's career where she specialised in this kind of soap-opera melodrama, like Imitation of Life. It is enjoyable raising questions of guilt and responsibility.

1. The overtones of the title and the illustration during the credits?

2. Was this too much of a melodrama? How plausible was the story? Was it made up of stock ingredients of melodrama? Were the situations and the characters and their behaviour somewhat cliched? Even if they are cliches, does this matter? Why?

3. Was this an entertaining film? To whom was it directed? Why are films like this enjoyable to watch? Where was audience sympathy? Why are audiences interested in this kind of family and behaviour? Is there anything wrong with this?

4. Why did Sheila and Doctor Rivera decide to commit murder? What motivated them? Were you in sympathy with their love before their decision to commit murder? Why? Did you disapprove of their behaviour from the beginning?

5. What kind of person was Sheila Cabot? Why had she married an older man? How did she feel in this family? Her relationship to Peter? Why had she fallen in love with Doctor Rivera? Her tactics to avoid suspicion? Kathy's dislike of her? Doctor Rivera as a sympathetic person? Was he likeable? His ambitions for study and doing good? His dilemma in trying to give up Sheila?

6. What kind of a person was Matthew Cabot? How unlikeable? How murderable? Did the film make this point strongly?

7. Howard Mason? how villainous, how murderable? Why was audience sympathy against him? How cruel and ruthless was he? Did he deserve to be murdered?

8. Did the romantic sub-plot add anything to the film - as regards young romance, the working in of the dockside story to the main plot? Blake Richards as a stereotyped hero? And victim for police suspicion? Miss Lee's intervention to tell the truth?

9. How entertaining were the melodramatics of Howard Mason's murder and the disposal of his body, especially when Sheila couldn't drive? Why did they both break down? Why were they so afraid? What did this do for their love for each other?

10. The plausibility of Peter's hearing the shot, and his telling Kathy? Was the ending too melodramatic, on the rooftop?

11. What was the overall impact of the film - any insight into values? Human behaviour? or just sheer entertainment?