Portrait from Life

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Portrait from Life
"Portrait from Life" (1948).jpg
British quad poster (1950s re-release)
Directed by Terence Fisher
Written by
Story by David Evans
Produced by Antony Darnborough
Starring
Cinematography Jack Asher
Edited byVladimir Sagovsky
Music by Benjamin Frankel
Production
company
Distributed by General Film Distributors
Release date
  • 15 December 1948 (1948-12-15)(London)
Running time
90 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£132,800 [1] [2]
Box office£150,000 (by 1953) [1] or £136,900 [2]
245,405 admissions (France) [3]

Portrait from Life (also known as Lost Daughter and Journey into Yesterday; U.S. title: The Girl in the Painting) [4] is a 1948 British drama film directed by Terence Fisher and starring Mai Zetterling, Robert Beatty and Guy Rolfe. [5]

Contents

Plot

A British Army officer, Major Lawrence, is on leave from being stationed in occupied Germany just after WW2 when he sees a painting of a beautiful young girl called Hildegard in a London art gallery. While viewing the painting he is approached by an old man, Professor Franz Menzel, who escaped from Nazi Germany in the 1930s leaving his family behind and claims to be the young girl's father. Major Lawrence agrees to search for the young girl when he returns to Germany. On returning to Germany and after a long search Major Lawrence eventually tracks down the young girl but she is suffering from amnesia and living with a German couple who claim to be her parents. As Lawrence investigates, the circumstances of the young girl's past become more complicated.

Main cast

Production

Anthony Steel has one of his earliest film appearances. [7]

Reception

Critical

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The superb acting of Mai Zetterling really makes this film; she acts with emotion and feeling, and lives the part  ...The other four main characters are also very competent. Although the story is fantastic in places, it is interesting and contains little humorous touches, and realistic glimpses of camp life to display the effects of good direction and production. The lighting, camerawork and musical illustrations are all good drama, thrills and suspense, together with sufficient relief." [8]

The New York Times wrote, "the new picture at the Little Carnegie stems from an intriguing idea, and there are several very effective sequences in the drama, plus a fine performance by the Swedish actress, Mai Zetterling. Indeed, if the whole of The Girl in the Painting were as good as its parts, the posting of this notice would be a much more pleasant task. Too much, rather than too little, story and plodding direction are the principal faults" [9]

Allmovie described it as "an over-orchestrated "guilty pleasure" from the glory days of British romance pictures." [4]

Box office

Producer's receipts were £93,000 in the UK and £43,900 overseas. [2]

The film made a profit of £4,100. [1]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Spicer, Andrew (5 September 2006). Sydney Box. Manchester University Press. ISBN   9780719059995 – via Google Books.
  2. 1 2 3 Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945-1985. Edinburgh University Press p 354. Income is in terms of producer's share of receipts.
  3. ↑ Box office information for Terence Fisher films in France at Box office Story
  4. 1 2 Hal Erickson. "Portrait from Life (1948) - Terence Fisher - Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related - AllMovie". AllMovie.
  5. ↑ "Portrait from Life". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 7 July 2024.
  6. ↑ "Nelly Arno". BFI. Archived from the original on 16 August 2014. Retrieved 22 July 2015.
  7. ↑ Vagg, Stephen (23 September 2020). "The Emasculation of Anthony Steel: A Cold Streak Saga". Filmink.
  8. ↑ "Portrait from Life". The Monthly Film Bulletin . 16 (181): 3. 1 January 1949. ProQuest   1305808564 – via ProQuest.
  9. ↑ "Movie Reviews". The New York Times. 12 August 2021.
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