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Albright completed his portrait of the ravaged Dorian in September of 1944. The painting, which measures 7'1" x 3'6", could hardly be surpassed in its depiction of the horrors inflicted by decay, degeneracy and disease. Bulging, bloodshot eyes stare from between swollen lids, a ragged syphilitic mouth reveals rotting teeth, and the entire visage is a mass of excrescences and chancroid growths. The hands are swollen and disfigured. A fungoid blight has all but destroyed clothes, wallpaper, furniture, a dressing screen and everything else in the scene except the Egyptian cat, which sits regally undisturbed by the surrounding putrescence. Albright had gone so far beyond Jack Dawn's concept of Dorian's dissipation that the makeup artist had to sculpt a more gruesome version of the mannequin for its brief moment onscreen as Dorian's corpse.
Although he was determined from the first to make the film in black-and-white "because of the good and evil symbolism," Lewin knew that the portrait would only be effective in color. Four scenes in which the painting was shown alone were photographed in Technicolor and spliced by hand into the release prints. The first color insert is of the Medina portrait when Hallward reveals it to Lord Henry and Dorian. The second follows Dorian's reiteration of his wish that the portrait would age in his stead. The first time the Albright portrait appears, when Dorian reveals it to Hallward, is a color shot in which the camera pulls back from a close-up of the ravaged face. After Hallward's murder, the Technicolor camera moves down from the painted face to a close-up of the right hand oozing blood. Albright, having decided that the cosmetic blood sent by the makeup department was unconvincing, had obtained fresh chicken blood from the studio commissary and, to the model's discomfiture, daubed it on Noyes' hand.
Lewin had intended to show the portrait's return to its original appearance via a series of gradual optical dissolves. This was not possible, however, given that the two paintings had unmatched poses and widely different painting styles. The director had to settle for a black-and-white sequence in which the Albright painting changes to a swirling mass of indistinct forms, from which the Medina painting emerges. The knife handle is matted in, and thus remains unchanged. The effect is impressive, but could have been more so in color.
Lewin did become carried away with a desire for perfection. He had made The Moon and Sixpence in 32 days at a cost of $401,000, but Dorian Gray was an entirely different matter. The late Carroll Shepphird, who was in charge of the process effects, recalled making a scene of Lord Henry riding in a hansom, with the shadow of the driver visible on the street outside. This was done on the process stage with the street projected on a translucent screen. Lewin called for take after take. Shepphird worried that the background plate wouldn't last through it. The director finally called a halt after the 92nd take. When he looked at the rushes the next day, he selected the first take.
The entire picture was photographed at MGM except for the outdoor sequence in which Sibyl's brother is killed in a hunting accident. All the sets are unusually large, both in breadth and height, with big pictures on the walls and tall doors. Stradling's sharp, deep-focus photography is very unlike the prevailing MGM style of that time, which tended to be softly lit and glamorously diffused. Faces are carefully modeled, however. Those of Sanders and Hatfield are usually lit so that one side is highlighted and the other is much darker. Hatfield's face had imperfect texture, which wouldn't do for the too-perfect Dorian. Aided by the makeup department and careful lighting, Stradling made the actor appear unblemished. Very little diffusion was needed for the young, fresh faces of Lansbury and Reed.
Most of the film's scenes are carefully composed shots with little or no camera movement. The occasional camera moves are subtle, such as a slow track-in to Dorian as he reads a poem, or dolly pullbacks to reveal more of a room or to place the Egyptian cat into the foreground.
Sanders prowls through the film, drawling the wealth of Wilde epigrams so perfectly that he dominates the cast with what is probably his finest performance. Various lines — such as "The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties," or "The only difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer" — seem to have been tailored for Sanders' laconic delivery. Hatfield coolly underplays Dorian in most scenes, withholding emotion to underline the character's loss of soul. Lansbury, who had just earned an Oscar nomination for her work in Gaslight, did equally well in the sympathetic characterization of Sibyl Vane. Gilmore is fine as Hallward, and the other players do well in their roles.
Herbert Stothart's musical score is restrained and beautiful. In addition to his original material, which includes a bittersweet main theme, he uses Chopin's "Prelude for Piano No. 24 in D Minor," which Dorian plays on the piano several times, as the main character's motif in the orchestral score. Sibyl's song, "Goodbye, Little Yellow Bird" likewise is identified with her. Stothart was a former composer of operettas ("Rose Marie," "Golden Dawn") and an MGM composer-conductor until his death in 1949.
Aside from the portrait itself, the most talked-about parts of the film are the slaying of Hallward and Dorian's death scene. As Hallward falls, his body strikes a large swag lamp, which begins to swing wildly on its chain, causing the shadows to leap and distort. This is repeated at the end when Dorian stabs the portrait and falls back, striking the lamp. (Incidentally, the ultra-critical Lewin, whose eyesight was worsening at that time, failed to note that the wire used to set the lamp in motion is visible.) The swinging light made such a strong impression that it has been reprised often, most notably in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). Dorian Gray is generally thought of as the film that introduced the effect, but it was used a decade earlier by Victor Seastrom in the MGM silent film, The Wind, for the scene in which Lillian Gish shoots Montagu Love. Lewin was Seastrom's closest friend at that time.
Perhaps the most curious thing about the film was unconditional support it received from Louis B. Mayer, the often volatile top man at MGM. The studio's lesser executives became horrified as Dorian Gray's production time lengthened and costs continued to rise far beyond budgetary estimates. Mayer benignly brushed their complaints aside and kept encouraging Lewin to make the picture as he saw fit. The final cost was about $1.8 million. When Mayer saw the finished product, he wrote a glowing letter to Lewin stating that he was proud to have the studio represented by such a prestigious picture. He made no comment about the cost.
As Lewin said later, Dorian Gray "didn't make anybody rich," but the public liked it well enough that it grossed more than $3 million. Most of the critics, however, were cold to the film, citing in particular Hatfield's deadpan performance and an overdose of narration. Val Lewton, who made similarly fastidious pictures for much less money, hated the picture and called Lewin "an old poop."
On March 7, 1946, D. W. Griffith presented Harry Stradling with a richly deserved Academy Award for his black-and-white cinematography. Also nominated were Angela Lansbury for supporting actress, Cedric Gibbons and Hans Peters for art direction, and Edwin B. Willis, John Bonar, and Hugh Hunt for set decoration.
Much later, The Picture of Dorian Gray gained new popularity on television and in video. Several later theatrical and TV versions of Wilde's tale have come and gone, but only Albert Lewin's one-of-a-kind opus has been ranked as a bona fide classic.
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