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Portrait of Jennie Overview:

Portrait of Jennie (1948) was a Fantasy - Romance Film directed by William Dieterle and produced by David O. Selznick, David Hempstead and Cecil Barker.

Academy Awards 1948 --- Ceremony Number 21 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best CinematographyJoseph AugustNominated
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Portrait of Jennie BlogHub Articles:

Portrait of Jennie (1948)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Jul 2, 2017 From 4 Star Films

The strands of our lives are woven together and neither time nor the world can break them. From the outset, you get a sense from the grand philosophical dialogue and imagery that we are being treated to a classical Hollywood precursor to Terence Malick’s Tree of Life. Quotes from Euripides an... Read full article

Portrait of Jennie (1948)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Jul 2, 2017 From 4 Star Films

The strands of our lives are woven together and neither time nor the world can break them. From the outset, you get a sense from the grand philosophical dialogue and imagery that we are being treated to a classical Hollywood precursor to Terence Malick’s Tree of Life. Quotes from Euripides an... Read full article

Portrait of Jennie, a Production Journal, of a Timeless Christmas Gift

By C. S. Williams on Dec 22, 2016 From Classic Film Aficionados

Glimpses of the Portrait of Jennie in 1948: Portrait of Jennie had its general public premier on Christmas Day, 1948, at the Carthay Circle Theater, located at 6316 San Vicente Boulevard, Los Angeles, California; a more than fifteen-hundred seat theater, with nearly one-thousand on the main floor. T... Read full article

Portrait of Jennie, a Production Journal, of a Timeless Christmas Gift

By C. S. Williams on Dec 22, 2016 From Classic Film Aficionados

Glimpses of the Portrait of Jennie in 1948: Portrait of Jennie had its general public premier on Christmas Day, 1948, at the Carthay Circle Theater, located at 6316 San Vicente Boulevard, Los Angeles, California; a more than fifteen-hundred seat theater, with nearly one-thousand on the main floor. T... Read full article

Portrait of Jennie and the Wisdom of Ethel Barrymore

By Virginie Pronovost on Aug 18, 2016 From The Wonderful World of Cinema

The Barrymore. Ah, that legendary family of actors! Ethel, John and Lionel, the three siblings were children of Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Emma Drew, themselves actors. Acting in the family kept going on as the years passed. John and his third wife, Dolores Costello, also an actress, had a so... Read full article

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Portrait of Jennie Quotes:

Jennie Appleton: I wish that you would wait for me to grow up so that we could always be together.
Jennie Appleton: I know we were meant to be together. The strands of our lives are woven together and neither the world nor time can tear them apart.
Jennie Appleton: I hate for it to stop, because when will we ever have it again?
Mrs. Jekes: I just can't understand a man fiddling away his time just painting things. Of course he did shovel some snow to pay part of last month's rent.
Mrs. Bunce: Painting things? Women? Women in the...
Mrs. Jekes: Mrs. Bunce, we agreed that he was a gentleman and gentleman just don't paint "women in the... "
Mrs. Bunce: [flustered] No, of course not.
Jennie Appleton: There is no life, my darling, until you love and have been loved. And then there is no death.
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Portrait of Jennie Facts
Feature film debut of David Wayne, Nancy Davis (future First Lady) and Nancy Olsen.
This was cinematographer Joseph H. August's last film. He died in late 1947 before the long and tumultuous production was completed, and was posthumously nominated for an Academy Award for Best Black & White Cinematography in 1949. Lee Garmes finished shooting the film, uncredited.
Special effects: 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. The original theatrical releases in Los Angeles (Carthay Circle Theatre), New York (Rivoli Theatre) and Boston (Esquire & Mayflower Theatres) presented the tidal wave sequence in Magnascope on the Cycloramic screen with Multi-Sound. The Cycloramic screen was claimed to be more reflective than regular screens with no distortion visible from any seat in the theatre, Multi-Sound was an early version of a Surround Sound-type speaker installation. Bosley Crowther, film critic for the New York Times, described it as "a howling hurricane that will blast you out of your seat."
"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie onOctober 31, 1949 with Joseph Cotten reprising his film role.
Bernard Herrmann was hired to write an original background score and did compose several themes but due to various production delays as well as the fact that Herrmann was tiring of David O. Selznick's demands, he dropped out and was replaced by Dimitri Tiomkin who, at the insistence of Selznick, ended up using themes by Claude Debussy. At the time Tiomkin was condemned by his colleagues for his adaptations. All that remains of Herrmann's contribution is the haunting song sung by Jennie entitled "Where I Come From, Nobody Knows".
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