You Can Own Your Own "Portrait of Jennie"!!!

source

I recently rewatched Portrait of Jennie (1948) starring Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotton, and Ethel Barrymore and was just as enchanted by it as the first time I viewed it (the full movie can be watched here).

It got me to think about movie portraits which led me to wonder if there was a poster of the portrait in Laura (1944) that could be bought and framed, since not everyone is lucky to have been Robert Osborne and own the actual picture. And while I unfortunately did not come across just such a poster, I did find where you can buy the publicity photo version of the one in Portrait of Jennie. It is available in both black and white and color as well as in several sizes. I would definitely get the largest one and frame it with a wide, ornate gold frame. This would also make a lovely present for a fan of the film!

 

The actual "portrait" and the poster version of Jones posing like the portrait.

Lovely post on the film by Classic Movies Digest

 

History of Graves Lighthouse

David O. Selznick - 50 Years

 

You've all seen this image before. The sun-dappled sign. The big white house. It's the logo for Selznick International, the studio that produced such classics as Gone With the Wind (1939) and Rebecca (1940).

Today is the 50th anniversary of the death of David O. Selznick. What does the 'O' stand for? Well it doesn't stand for O'Malley. In fact, it doesn't stand for anything! Here's his explanation:

I have no middle name...I had an uncle, whom I greatly disliked, who was also named David Selznick, so in order to to avoid any growing confusion between the two of us, I decided to take a middle initial and went through the alphabet to find one that seemed to give me the best punctuation and decided on 'O'.

With his wife, Irene

Selznick was born May 10, 1902. In 1930 he married Irene Mayer, daughter of Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM. Selznick worked for MGM until 1935, when he leased a section of the RKO Studios lot and opened his own production company, Selznick International (in 1957 it became Desilu). Production chief of MGM Irving Thalberg, who was married to Norma Shearer, helped finance the studio.

The trick in adapting novels is to give the 'illusion' of photographing the entire book. Tis is more difficult than creating an original [script].

Selznick International was committed to making pictures of the highest quality. Selznick ruled over his films with an iron fist (famously clashing with director Alfred Hitchcock, who was also used to complete control, on the pictures they made together). The studio produced between 2 and 3 pictures a year. Some of these pictures included: A Star is Born (1937), Nothing Sacred (1937), Made for Each Other (1939), Intermettzo (1939), Gone With the Wind (1939), Rebecca (1940), Since You Went Away (1944), I'll Be Seeing You (1945), and Spellbound (1945). The stars under contract there included Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Joan Fontaine, Shirley Temple, Joseph Cotton, and many others. You can see photos and drawings of the studio backlots here.

The difference between me and other producers is that I am interested in the thousands and thousands of details that go into the making of a film. It is the sum total of all these things that either makes a great picture or destroys it.

The studio closed in 1943, as Selznick could not afford to pay the enormous taxes. After that he formed Vanguard Films, Inc. and in 1946 it became the Selznick Releasing Organization.

Hollywood: The Selznick Years documentary

In 1949, Selznick divorced Irene and married the actress Jennifer Jones (who had divorced Robert Walker in 1945). They remained married until Selznick's death on June 22, 1965.

Here's a really cool article with photos of their home.

Hollywood's like Egypt, full of crumbling pyramids. It'll just keep on crumbling until finally the wind blows the last studio prop across the sands.

One of the things Selznick was famous for was his exceptionally long memos. He even left a memo directing the handing of his funeral. Here's part of what he said (taken from Joseph Cotten's autobiography Vanity Will Get You Somewhere, 163):

I shall need a rabbi for, though I have not been a very good Jew, I am a Jew. But I would like a rabbi who doesn't know me too well; then he can't talk too long and bore my friends. I suppose a few words will have to be said; I would like them spoken by a good voice, so if Joseph Cotten is in the country I want him to say them. Also, he will be brief. 

Sources:
IMDb
Vanity Will Get You Somewhere by Joseph Cotten  
Wikipedia
Pinterest - images

 

Happy 110th Birthday, Joseph Cotten!

 Today is the 110th birthday of Joseph Cotten.

The following is from IMDb (I didn't know it was his birthday till late, otherwise I would have written up my own bio):

Joseph Cheshire Cotten, Jr. was born in Petersburg, Virginia, into a well-to-do Southern family. He was the eldest of three sons born to Sally Whitworth (Willson) and Joseph Cheshire Cotten, Sr., an assistant postmaster.

1908, with his father and grandfather

Jo (as he was known) and his brothers Whit and Sam spent their summers at their aunt and uncle's home at Virginia Beach. And there and at an early age he discovered a passion for story-telling, reciting, and performing acts for his family. Cotten studied acting at the Hickman School of Expression in Washington, D.C. and worked as an advertising agent afterward. But by 1924 tried to enter acting in New York. His money opportunities were limited to shipping clerk, and after a year of attempting stage work, he left with friends, heading for Miami. There he found a variety of jobs: lifeguard, salesman, a stint as entrepreneur -- making and selling 'Tip Top Potato Salad' - but more significantly, drama critic for the Miami Herald. That evidently led to appearance in plays at the Miami Civic Theater. Through a connection at the Miami Herald he managed to land an assistant stage manager job in New York. In 1929 he was engaged for a season at the Copley Theatre in Boston, and there he was able to expand his acting experience, appearing in 30 plays in a wide variety of parts. By 1930 he made his Broadway debut. In 1931 Cotten married Lenore La Mont (usually known as Kipp), a pianist, divorced with a two-year-old daughter.

1928

To augment his income as an actor in the mid-30s, Cotten took on radio shows in addition to his theatre work. At one audition he met an ambitious, budding actor/writer/director/producer with a mission to make his name-Orson Welles. Cotten was 10 years his senior, but the two found a kindred spirit in one another. For Cotten, Welles association would completely redirect his serious acting life. Their early co-acting attempts boded ill for employment in formal acting vehicles. At a rehearsal for CBS radio the two destroyed a scene taking place on a rubber tree plantation. One or the other was supposed to say the line: "Barrels and barrels of pith...." They could not overcome uncontrolled laughter at each attempt. The director berated them as acting like 'school-children' and 'unprofessional', and thereafter both were considered unreliable. Welles's ambition put that quickly behind them when he formed The Mercury Theatre Players. In 1937, Cotten starred in Welles's Mercury productions of "Julius Caesar" and "Shoemaker's Holiday". And he made his film debut in the Welles-directed short Too Much Johnson (1938), a comedy based on William Gillette's 1890 play. The short was occasionally screened before or after Mercury productions, but never received an official release. Cotten returned to Broadway in 1939, starring as C.K. Dexter Haven in the original production of Philip Barry's "The Philadelphia Story".

With Katharine Hepburn in the theatrical version of The Philadelphia Story

The uproar over Welles's "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast, was rewarded with an impressive contract from RKO Pictures. The two-picture deal promised full creative control for the young director, and Welles brought his Mercury players on-board in feature roles in what he chose to bring to the screen. But after a year, nothing had germinated until Welles met with writer Herman J. Mankiewicz, resulting in the Citizen Kane (1941) idea - early 1940. The story of a slightly veiled William Randolph Hearst with Welles as Kane and Cotten, in his Hollywood debut, as his college friend turned confidant and theater critic, Jed Leland, would become film history, but at the time it caused little more than a ripple. Hearst owned the majority of the country's press outlets and so forbade advertisements for the film. The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards in 1942 but was largely ignored by the Academy, only winning for Best Screenplay for Welles and Mankiewicz.

With Orson Welles in Citizen Kane

Thereafter he appeared with some of the most leading of Hollywood leading ladies - a favorite being Jennifer Jones, Selznick's wife with the two of them being his most intimate friends. Cotten got the opportunity to play a good range of roles through the 1940s - the darkest being the blue beard-like killer in Alfred Hitchcock thriller Shadow of a Doubt (1943) with Teresa Wright. He starred later in the critically acclaimed Portrait of Jennie (1948), from the haunting Robert Nathan book. Cotten is thoroughly convincing as a second-rate, unmotivated artist who finds inspiration from a chance acquaintance budding into love with an incarnation of a girl who died years before.

Shadow of a Doubt

With the passing of his first wife in 1960 Cotten met and married British actress Patricia Medina. The 1960s found him equally busy in TV and film.

With wife, Patricia

Cotten was not ready to turn his back on Hollywood until the beginning of the 1980s. After a Love Boat episode (1981), Cotten joined his wife and his love of gardening and entertaining friends in retirement. He also had the time to write an engaging autobiography Vanity Will Get You Somewhere (1987). Cotten's somewhat matter-of-fact and seemingly gruff acting voice served him well. Certainly his command of varied roles deserved more than the snub of never being nominated for an Academy Award. He was not the only actor to suffer being underrated, but that is largely forgotten in those memorable roles that speak for him. And for what it is worth, the Europeans had the very good sense to award him the Venice Film Festival Award for Best Actor for Portrait of Jennie, one of his favorite roles.

 

He died of pneumonia February 6, 1994 in Los Angeles, CA.

Movies to Watch

Shadow of a Doubt (1943) dir. by Alfred Hitchcock. Also starring Teresa Wright.

Gaslight (1944) starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer.

On the set of Gaslight with Bergman. Wonder what they're eating?

Since You Went Away (1944) starring Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, Shirley Temple, and several other well known actors. I know I watched this but it was quite some time ago and I don't remember much.

Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Robert Walker, and Claudette Colbert

I'll Be Seeing You (1944) starring Ginger Rogers and Shirley Temple. You can watch it here.

                

Portrait of Jennie (1948) starring Jennifer Jones, which I wrote about here.

Quotes

I didn't care about the movies really. I was tall. I could talk. It was easy to do.

My wife told me one of the sweetest things one could hear: "I am not jealous. But I am truly sad for all the actresses who embrace you and kiss you while acting, for with them, you are only pretending."

All images found via Pinterest

Portrait of Jennie (1948)

 

The first time I saw Portrait of Jennie, it reminded me of several things. It reminded me of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) because of the ghost part (as well as the haunting music of Claude Debussy), and Laura (1944) because of the portrait/obsession part. It also reminded me of one of my favorite books, Tom's Midnight Garden (©1958) by Philippa Pierce, a must read.

 

The movie stars Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, and Ethel Barrymore. This is actually the first movie I have seen Ms. Barrymore in. You can see the resemblance between Lionel and her, especially in the eyes. Though she doesn't have much screen time, you certainly don't forget her performance. In Joseph Cotten's autobiography, Vanity Will Get You Somewhere, he recalls that after their final scene together, when Barrymore's character talks about the spirit of Jennie, he "looked into her wise, expressive eyes. We said nothing. Without words she told me that she believed in Jennie's existence" (82).

 

 

Release Date: April 22, 1949

Running Time: 86 min.

Director: William Dieterle

 

Synopsis: The movie opens in the winter of 1934. Eben Adams (Cotten) is a talented but struggling artist New York who has never been able to find inspiration for a painting. One day, after he finally finds someone to buy a painting from him, a pretty but odd young girl named Jennie Appleton (Jones) appears and strikes up an unusual friendship with Eben.

 

 

Jennie inspires Eben in a way that nothing has ever inspired him. He is able to sell a sketch of her.

 

 

Over the next few months Eben meets Jennie again and again, eventually uncovering evidence that he has been conversing and falling in love with the ghost of a girl who died years earlier.

 

 

They did a fantastic job of making Jennifer Jones "grow up" as the film progresses. You can watch the movie on YouTube.

 

 

Trivia:

No credits are shown at the beginning except for the studio logo, not even the title of the film. Instead, a narrator speaks the prologue and then announces, "And now, 'Portrait of Jennie'". The credits are saved for the end of the picture.

 

Bernard Herrmann was hired to write an original background score and did compose several themes but dropped out and was replaced by Dimitri Tiomkin who, at the insistence of Selznick, ended up using themes by Claude Debussy. All that remains of Herrmann's contribution is the haunting song sung by Jennie, "Where I Come From, Nobody Knows".

Based on a book of the same title by Robert Nathan (he also wrote The Bishop’s Wife).

UPDATE: The book was really good! Only slightly different from the movie. Mainly the ending. I copied several passages from it.

Although almost the entire film is in black and white, the tidal wave sequence towards the end is shown in green tint, and the final shot of the completed portrait of Jennie is in full Technicolor.

 

 

Quotes:

 

Jennie: How beautiful the world is Eben! The sun goes down in in the same lovely sky. Just as it did yesterday, and will tomorrow.

Eben: When is tomorrow, Jenny?

Jennie: Does it matter? It's always. This was tomorrow once.

 

Jennie: [singing] Where I come from nobody knows and where I am going everything goes. The wind blows, the sea flows, nobody knows. And where I am going, nobody knows.

 

Miss Spinney(Barrymore): [to Eben] As you get older, you'll come to believe in many things you don't see. Maybe you saw Jennie, or maybe you created her because you needed her, needed her to open up your talent."

 

Behind the scenes

This post is part of the Barrymore Trilogy Blogathon hosted by In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood. Be sure and check out all of the other posts on this talented family!

 

Sources:

Vanity Will Get You Somewhere by Joseph Cotten

IMDb

rottentomatoes

Pinterest