It’s time to look at one of the adaptions for Dorian Grey. This is the 1945 film and this was at an era where there were dozens of great films. Typically, the writing for films in the 40’s-60’s was very engaging and the dialogue was enough to keep you glued to the seat. For some reason, that didn’t work here and I did not care for this film, but at least the visuals still make it easy to see what is happening. Let’s see why this film couldn’t bring in a retro victory.

The film follows a man named Dorian Gray and he wants someone to make a portrait of him. This happens and he wishes that the painting could age instead of him. This results in Gray obtaining immortality so now he can live forever or it actually means that his looks do not age while he still does on the inside. I’m inclined to think that it is the former, but I suppose that you can still make a case for both. Now that he is immortal….what will he do next?

I feel like the film didn’t know what to do at that point. Once he became immortal, Gray had no real ambitions and he just started to get psychotic as the film went on. Destroying those who got in his way was something that he did for no real reason and let’s not forget the moments of black mail. It’s definitely very hard to actually find Dorian Gray to be a likable character amidst all of this and no matter how sympathetic he tries to be at the end, it doesn’t work. We don’t get a reason to believe that he could have been a changed person since his random episodes during the film make trusting him a little difficult.

When you have a film where the lead character is not interesting or likable, then you’re bound to run into some problems. As I mentioned earlier, I typically enjoy the back and forth dialogue in these kinds of films, but it didn’t work this time. The characters weren’t very engaging and neither was the plot so most of the dialogue just felt like filler that never went anywhere. Listening to the characters talk about their own view on ethics may be intriguing, but it won’t do anything for you.

It should also be noted that the film starts off on a really low note with a butterfly being destroyed in one of the opening scenes. It’s a scene like that, which quickly takes you out of a film and it’s hard to really enjoy it. If a film is good enough, it can still rise above that and get a decent rating, but when a film is already intended to be a little bleak and uneventful…this does not help its case as the event will stay fresh in your memory. Another character doesn’t help his case after that as he tries to destroy another animal and ends up destroying a human instead. It was an accident of course, but it shows why shooting for sport is definitely not a good hobby.

The film is very old so the violence isn’t terrible. We get a quick death by stabbing that is mostly seen through a silhouette, but the most gruesome part of the film is easily the painting. The whole film is in black and white aside from the painting, which is in color. This is used to show us just how grotesque the main character is, but the film goes way too far. Between all of the blood that is on the painting and the poor condition of the man’s body, it’s just pretty gross to look at. We could have gotten the same impression without the blood of the ugly bits by just making the guys eyes black or throwing some horns on. As it stands, you’ll just want to look away whenever the painting actually appears.

One of the main things that also hurt the film is that it’s one of those movies that will make you start to feel sleepy as you watch it. That’s because you go through long periods of time where nothing happens like in the Hobbit or LOTR films. It all goes back to the fact that there isn’t really a plot once Gray becomes immortal. It’s basically just him walking around and discovering that being immortal is not a whole lot of fun. Typically, it might have been, but he did sell his soul to become immortal so the cost was too great for him.

At the very least, the message is pretty good since the film shows that selling your soul for any price is never worth it. Immortality and riches are meaningless if you’re just going to burn away in hell for an eternity afterwards. Let’s face it, even if you are immortal, you’ll be taken out eventually once people find out. In the film, nobody really seems concerned that Gray always looks the same and they seem to think that he just has some kind of secret, but 50 years from then, you can bet that the government and many villains would be getting suspicious. Gray made the wrong move and he definitely paid for it throughout the film.

Overall, The Picture of Dorian Gray is definitely not one of the better films. From the 40’s titles that I’ve seen, it very well could be the worst, but I can’t say that with 100% certainty. The film just isn’t very interesting and the grotesque painting coupled with the animal violence really hurt it. There are also no real likable characters since most of them are corrupt or just decide to take the easy way out of situations. It’s a film that would work better if the immortality bit was just a side plot and the real story involved some kind of adventure of something. They definitely need to add some more meat to the story. I definitely would not recommend this film and if you want to see something that’s retro, check out the old Superman shorts of one of the Bogart and Bacall films. Then you’ll see how action can really help a story.

Overall 3/10