Taglines: She had to fight for the right to love…
Portrait in Black movie storyline. In San Francisco, shipping magnate Matthew Cabot, though fatally ill, watches over his fleet and remains controlling and cruel to his wife Sheila and second-in-command, Howard Mason. As he does each day, Dr. David Rivera, who is secretly having an affair with Sheila, arrives to administer Matt’s injection of ether to control the pain, a procedure Howard considers suspicious.
While Sheila listens in silence, Matt questions David about the position the physician has been offered as the head of a Zurich hospital. After dismissing David, Matt treats Sheila roughly, accusing her of having a “love deficiency” and demanding that she give up her plans to learn to drive.
Sheila decides to go out, and although she has not left the house for days, her stepdaughter, Catherine, expresses disdain at her desire to escape Matt. Sheila asks her chauffeur, Cob O’Brien, to drive her to the store, but once there, sneaks out the back entrance and visits David.
The two are desperately in love, but Sheila knows if she leaves Matt he will keep their son Peter and destroy David’s career, which is of utmost importance to him. David admits to Sheila that he must take the job in Zurich to escape his constant fantasies of murdering Matt with an untraceable air bubble in the hypodermic. Although despondent at the thought of David leaving, Sheila bids him farewell.
The next day, however, David shows up at her house, and together they inject Matt with air, killing him instantly. Meanwhile, Cathy visits her boyfriend, Blake Richards, who is trying to rebuild his father’s shipping company, which Matt put out of business years earlier. Blake announces that Matt has awarded him a large shipping contract, the profits from which will allow the couple to marry. At Matt’s funeral, Howard unnerves David by implying that the doctor is unusually close to Sheila.
Later that night, Sheila, plagued by nightmares, calls David for comfort, and although he is afraid to be seen with her, he agrees to visit soon. The next day, Howard declares his love to Sheila, and after she refuses him, he threatens to look into his suspicion that she was unfaithful to Matt.
Among the corporate papers Howard urges Sheila to sign is the dissolution of Blake’s contract, which throws the struggling businessman into insolvency. Blake confronts Howard at his office, where Howard forces his secretary, Miss Lee, to lie to Blake that Matt did not want him to have the contract. Blake vows to fight against Howard, unconcerned that Howard is taping the conversation. Later, Cob, a clandestine gambler who is being hounded by loan sharks, checks the mailbox for a letter.
David and Sheila meet inside the house, and after Cathy interrupts them, David fears that they are not being covert enough about their relationship. Before David can leave, Sheila opens a handwritten letter, postmarked from Carmel the previous Monday, which reads: “Congratulations on the success of your murder.” Soon, David is so wracked with anxiety that he can no longer perform surgery, and tells Sheila that they must find and kill whoever has written the letter.
Portrait in Black is a 1960 American neo-noir thriller film directed by Michael Gordon, and starring Lana Turner and Anthony Quinn. Produced by Ross Hunter, the film was based on the play of the same by name by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, who also wrote the screenplay. The film was distributed by Universal-International. This was the final film appearance by veteran actress Anna May Wong.
Portrait in Black (1960)
Directed by: Michael Gordon
Starring: Lana Turner, Anthony Quinn, Sandra Dee, John Saxon, Lloyd Nolan, Ray Walston, Richard Basehart, Virginia Grey, Anna May Wong, Dennis Kohler, Elizabeth Chan, John Wengraf, John McNamara
Screenplay by: Ivan Goff, Ben Roberts
Production Design by: Edward Muhl, Edward Dodds
Cinematography by: Russell Metty
Film Editing by: Milton Carruth
Costume Design by: Jean Louis
Set Decoration by: Julia Heron
Art Direction by: Richard H. Riedel
Music by: Frank Skinner
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: June 23, 1960 (Chicago), June 28, 1960 (Los Angeles), July 27, 1960 (New York City)
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