Portrait of Jennie
| Portrait of Jennie | |
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Movie poster
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| Directed by | William Dieterle |
| Produced by |
David O. Selznick David Hempstead |
| Screenplay by |
Paul Osborn Peter Berneis Leonardo Bercovici (adaptation) |
| Based on |
Portrait of Jennie 1940 novel by Robert Nathan |
| Starring |
Jennifer Jones Joseph Cotten Ethel Barrymore |
| Narrated by | Joseph Cotten |
| Music by |
Claude Debussy Dimitri Tiomkin |
| Cinematography | Joseph H. August |
| Edited by | William Morgan |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Selznick Releasing Organization |
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Release date
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Running time
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86 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $4,041,000 |
| Box office | $1,510,000 (rentals) |
Portrait of Jennie is a 1948 fantasy film based on the novella by Robert Nathan. The film was directed by William Dieterle and produced by David O. Selznick. It stars Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotten.
In 1934, impoverished painter Eben Adams (Joseph Cotten) meets a fey little girl named Jennie Appleton (Jennifer Jones) in Central Park, New York City. She is wearing old-fashioned clothing. He makes a sketch of her from memory which involves him with art dealer Miss Spinney (Ethel Barrymore), who sees potential in him. This inspires him to paint a portrait of Jennie.
Eben encounters Jennie at intermittent intervals. Strangely, she appears to be growing up much more rapidly than is possible. He soon falls in love with her but is puzzled by the fact that she seems to be experiencing events that he discovers took place many years previously as if they had just happened. Eventually he learns the truth about Jennie and though inevitable tragedy ensues, she continues to be an inspiration to Eben's life and art, and his career makes a remarkable upturn, commencing with his portrait of Jennie.
The book on which the film was based first attracted the attention of David O. Selznick, who immediately purchased it as a vehicle for Academy Award winner Jennifer Jones. Filming began in early 1947 in New York City and Boston, Massachusetts, but Selznick was unhappy with the results and scheduled re-shoots as well as hiring and firing five different writers before the film was completed in October 1948. The New York shooting enabled Selznick to use Albert Sharpe and David Wayne who were both appearing on stage in Finian's Rainbow, giving an Irish flair to characters and the painting in the bar that was not in Nathan's novel.
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