The Furniture: Finding the Fear in "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber. (Click on the images for magnified detail)

Watching The Picture of Dorian Gray as a horror film in this, its 75th anniversary year, is a bit of a puzzle. It’s almost unrecognizable within the genre, though director Albert Lewin does treat the revelation of the deformed painting itself as something of a jump scare. But the overall vibe is more akin to a period drama or a film noir than anything we would consider spooky today.

That is, until you think about it a little more closely.

 The Picture of Dorian Gray is an atmospheric horror film about things that don’t necessarily scare us nearly as much anymore: arrogance, beauty and the simple fact of sexuality. In this way it does actually resemble the great horror films of its time, monster movies that make much out of giant laboratories and cavernous castles, unnerving the audience through the use of production design. Dorian Gray’s home is of a piece with Dracula’s castle and the Mummy’s tomb...

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Clift @100: Monty arrives in "The Search"

by Eric Blume

We’re celebrating actor Montgomery Clift’s centennial here at TFE with a staff-wide observance of every single one of his films.  I’m the lucky bastard who gets to launch this exciting series with his first released film, 1948’s The Search.  

Director Fred Zinnemann crafted a film that holds up surprisingly well at age 72.  Sure, you have to muddle through some stilted expository voice-over and some now-dated narrative conventions, but this film’s emotional power still taps primal feelings and has an incredible payoff.  It’s a Hollywood film through and through, but Zinnemann shows extraordinary restraint and intelligence, keeping his focus on his young actor, and the American cheerleading to a minimum...

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Mickey Rooney @ 100: "The Human Comedy"

by Cláudio Alves

While Mickey Rooney's career is famed for its longevity, the actor's professional life wasn't without its hurdles, declines, and subsequent comebacks. Transitioning from childhood stardom to adult celebrity isn't easy for anyone, much less for someone as famous as Rooney. Blessed with a boyish face and short stature, he was perfect for playing young people like the famed Andy Hardy, still acting as a teenager well into his 20s. Boundless energy typified his screen persona, often verging on manic cheer that befitted youthful roles but was out of place in grown-up parts.

In this context, World War II marked a turning point. Before it, Rooney was a performing wunderkind who gave a face and a voice to American teenagers everywhere while earning MGM big bucks at the box office. After it, the young boy shtick lost its appeal, the star quickly fading into a character actor. The Human Comedy, released in 1943, one year before Mickey Rooney was inducted into the US Army, was one of his last big hits. It also netted him a second Best Actor nomination…

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Shelley Winters @ 100: A Double Life (1947)

For the next few evenings we'll be celebrating the career of Shelley Winters for her Centennial. Here's Nathaniel R...

Shelley as a young starlet (1943) and as a prestigious character actress (1968)

Shirley Schrift had been kicking around showbiz for eight years before the needle moved. At just 19 years of age, before she had any real professional credits, she auditioned for Scarlett O'Hara (like virtually every aspiring actress of the time) during the famed nationwide search. Director George Cukor himself (the initial director of Gone With the Wind) advised her to get acting lessons. She did and her work ethic and ambition paid off. Broadway roles followed and Hollywood soon after. The first years of her movie career were mostly filled with uncredited bits in Columbia and MGM pictures. With studio jobs came the usual tinkering with persona starting with a stage name. Shirley became Shelley and the Schrift became Winter and then Winters. Though some screen icons were given the instant star treatment, Winters career was closer to the norm of working actors in studio-era Hollywood. You were just one of thousands of faces but if you were lucky, charismatic, talented, or if executives took an interest (all four was naturally ideal), they'd work carefully on your image and groom you for larger roles.

At twenty-six the actress's luck changed suddenly -- as it does if it changes at all -- with two roles that launched her to stardom...

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The Furniture: Olivia de Havilland Embroiders Her Fate

Daniel Walber's series on Production Design. Click on the images to see them in magnified detail.

Olivia de Havilland was in nine films that were nominated for the Oscar for Best Production Design. It’s not the record, but it’s quite something. I’ve covered three of them: Hold Back the Dawn, My Cousin Rachel and Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte. But none of those actually won the award, so I still have some work to do. I haven’t got time for Gone with the Wind, and The Adventures of Robin Hood can wait a few weeks until our 1938 celebration, so I dove into The Heiress.

I hope you’re ready to think deeply about embroidery.

Granted, I’m not entirely sure director William Wyler was thinking deeply about his protagonist’s favorite pastime. The emphasis on Catherine Sloper’s (de Havilland) stitching can feel like little more than shorthand for “spinster” status. And the mid-19th century was a high point for this association, as embroidery was a standard part of the girls’ school curriculum.

Dr. Austin Sloper (Ralph Richardson) sent Catherine to the finest boarding schools, where she would have learned the art of the sampler from an unmarried teacher. The end of the film bluntly zooms in on one of these stitched alphabets, which in this context might as well read “OLD MAID”...

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