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I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Touches You

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Lana Turner plays Sheila Cabot. She's unhappily married to a mean, old and rich man who treats her like that. She's having a secret affair with his doctor (Anthony Quinn). They plan and inject a lethal air bubble into her husband killing him. She gets all his money. They think they've gotten away with it till Turner receives a note in the mail saying, "Congratulations on the success of your murder". Who knows it and what do they want. A young Sandra Dee and John Saxon are mixed up in this. The plot is OK, it LOOKS great and Turner is always dressed to the 9s but this fails utterly. It has terrible dialogue--truly laughable. The acting doesn't help, Turner--a wonderful actress--gives a lousy performance. Quinn is seriously miscast and out of his depth. Saxon and Dee are good but are hardly in it. There's also a totally ridiculous but fun plot twist at the end. This was (understandably) a box office failure but is now considered a camp classic. Proceed at your own risk.

Trash comes in many appearances, and no matter how you disguise it, it still remains trash. In the case of this Ross Hunter soap opera, over-produced after the success of "Magnificent Obsession" and "Imitation of Life", the result is a re-tread of what star Lana Turner had done (much better) in the original "The Postman Always Rings Twice". Here, she is again married to a much older man, the possessive Lloyd Nolan, a bed ridden tyrant intent on making her life miserable. He has her followed everywhere and violently objects when she wants to learn how to drive so she doesn't need to utilize their chauffeur (a wasted Ray Walston). What comes very apparent is that the bored Turner is having an affair, with Nolan's own doctor (Anthony Quinn), whose obsession with Turner borders on insanity. A syringe filled with air quickly dispatches Nolan, and Turner and Quinn spend the rest of the film trying to keep their affair secret while dealing with an apparent blackmailer.Who could the blackmailer be? Dour housekeeper Anna May Wong (who suffers racial indignities at the hands of Walston, the most obvious suspect), Nolan's attorney Richard Basehart, the young son of a former business rival (John Saxon) or his daughter from his first marriage (Sandra Dee) are the apparent suspects as the party sending the hand-written letter. While it is all attractive looking and Turner is still lovely, Quinn is totally off-putting in this role, constantly reminding himself of his Hippocratic oath and citing moral laws he's already broken. The screenplay is too self-conscious of its own moral flaws and keeps trying to manipulate you into empathizing with the lovers because of the horrid husband Turner had to suffer with.Usually, I like these types of films in a guilty pleasure sort of way; The trashier, the better. However, in the case of this film, it somehow feels artificial, like someone took a pulp novel, transported it into a screenplay as originally written, found a bunch of available major stars and threw it together without regards to adding in any quality. The acting is badly melodramatic, the characters feel one dimensional, and the whole feeling is of a soufflé that is about to be touched and collapsed without being serveable.

"Portrait in Black" is another of Ross Hunter's late '50s-early '60s productions for Universal-International. Like his others, this is a beautifully realized film with an excellent budget and meticulous attention paid to every detail, ensuring the cast looked their best and the story was brought about with taste and credibility.I've always liked this glossy, good-looking movie. However I must say I personally don't think Anthony Quinn was right for the role of the doctor. Gregory Peck, with his noble features and polished manner, would have brought an interesting dimension to that part.Beautiful sets, hair styles, clothes, cars, manners and language. A delight to behold. Enjoy.

Producer Ross Hunter's imitation of his earlier hit "Imitation of Life" is predictably stylized--in Hunter's tacky way--but less predictably colorless and unhappy. Hunter may be the only producer from this era who could turn a modern-day story (circa 1960) such as "Portrait in Black" and make it all seem like 1940 again. Considering the apparent goal to have this be a socially relevant soap scandal, the producer's glossy approach is all wrong, and the movie arrives wrapped in mothballs. Based on a flop Broadway play, this story about a waterfront czar who is bumped off by his wife and her doctor-lover is awfully grim (and, by the weak finale, fairly ridiculous). Blackmail-laced plot is given amusingly pulpy treatment, filmed in handsome color with lots of shadows, but it's a screenplay right off the assembly line. Melodrama buffs may not care, for star Lana Turner does all the requisite suffering and fidgeting prone to one-dimensional 'woman's pictures' such as this. *1/2 from ****