This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Lana Turner plays Sheila Cabot. She's unhappily married to a mean, old and rich man who treats her like that. She's having a secret affair with his doctor (Anthony Quinn). They plan and inject a lethal air bubble into her husband killing him. She gets all his money. They think they've gotten away with it till Turner receives a note in the mail saying, "Congratulations on the success of your murder". Who knows it and what do they want. A young Sandra Dee and John Saxon are mixed up in this. The plot is OK, it LOOKS great and Turner is always dressed to the 9s but this fails utterly. It has terrible dialogue--truly laughable. The acting doesn't help, Turner--a wonderful actress--gives a lousy performance. Quinn is seriously miscast and out of his depth. Saxon and Dee are good but are hardly in it. There's also a totally ridiculous but fun plot twist at the end. This was (understandably) a box office failure but is now considered a camp classic. Proceed at your own risk.

High camp and a load of old tosh. Ross Hunter's production of "Portrait in Black" is one of his lesser efforts and that's saying something. Lana Turner and Anthony Quinn (badly miscast) are the adulterous lovers who murder her rich husband, Lloyd Nolan, and are then plagued by a 4th party who seems to know what they did. Since Nolan was something of a louse your sympathies are initially with his killers, at least until they start to screw up and go off the rails. Others involved in this decidedly OTT mystery include Richard Basehart, Sandra Dee, John Saxon, Ray Walston and that siren of the silent screen Anna May Wong. Of course, it's terrible but not unenjoyable in a bad-movie kind of way.

"Portrait in Black" is one of the worst and most laughable melodramas that I have seen in years. One should not expect too much from a motion picture in which the name of gown designer Jean Louis appears bigger than cinematographer Russell Metty's. But that's the way it is, and to make sure there is absolutely no doubt about it in a production from Ross Hunter (the man behind "Imitation of Life", "All That Heaven Allows", and "Pillow Talk"), when Lana Turner has to go out incognito to get rid of a dead body, she chooses a sequined coat that matches the glittering black dress that Jean Louis designed for the occasion. Based on a stage play by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts that combines James M. Cain's material with Alfred Hitchcock's strategies, I would not know how to classify this melodrama without seeming rude, but this "portrait in black" is more a "Portrait in Heat", because there is not much beyond sexual obsession. A married woman (Turner) and the family doctor (Anthony Quinn) who want to have sex and little else, have never managed to be intimate as old as they are (thanks to the Hays code and prudish dramaturgy). The only way out they imagine is to kill her husband, so they can fulfill their most basic objective. As Turner and Quinn look the age they had when making the film (40 and 45), and there is not a trace of love but plain fixation, the whole mess becomes extremely ridicule, getting no help from Richard Basehart, Sandra Dee, John Saxon, Lloyd Nolan or Ray Walston. Only Anna May Wong and Virginia Grey bring a bit of distinction and dignity, "in the Hunter style".

Portrait In Black is in many respects typical of the Ross Hunter films that rejuvenated Lana Turner's later career. If you're a fan of the genre, this one is quite entertaining, and in my opinion far superior to the previous year's terrible remake of Imitation of Life.Portrait In Black brings us a torrid soap opera revolving around the relationship between the wife of a wealthy shipping magnate, Sheila Cabot, and her husband's physician, Dr. David Rivera. Unable to bear having only a few stolen moments for the each other, they conspire to murder Sheila's husband so they can be together. They subsequently find themselves blackmailed and must determine who is the blackmailer and how they will extricate themselves from this web of danger that continues to keep them separated.As previous reviewers have pointed out, there are some rather silly aspects to the story, but these again are typical of the genre. For beginners, Sheila's husband Matt Cabot is said to have a hopeless terminal illness and to have been ill for many months. Thus, their motivation for murdering him is rather weak; he will soon die without any malicious intent on their part. If they really could not bear the wait, the idea proposed in the script, that they cannot just run away together because Matt Cabot would ruin Dr. Rivera's career and he would "never practice medicine again", is a rather unrealistic threat (although admittedly common in soap opera land). Dr. Rivera's home gives the impression he is already quite wealthy, it is not as though these two would be condemned to a life of poverty and want. These plot holes are exasperated by the poorly directed love scenes between David and Sheila, which consist of much-overplayed melodramatic panting, gasping, crying, and an inordinate and unnatural amount of chewing on one another's hands. Secondly, there are a few script blunders that could have been easily corrected. When Dr. Rivera requires Sheila to drive, he puts her in the car and has to explain what the gas and brake are for, yet in scene one we are told Sheila has been issued a learner's permit by the Department of Motor Vehicles. A learner's permit allows one to drive so long as another licensed driver is present, and one would obviously have to have mastered the basics of what makes the car go in order to be issued such a permit. The plot of device that Sheila "doesn't drive" would have been far more believable without the unnecessary learner's permit in the script. There are a number of similar absent-minded script errors here.Having said that, one does not watch a period Ross Hunter soaper for realism. One watches it for drama, and the lush and beautiful feel we expect from Mr. Hunter. In this regard, Portrait does not disappoint. Our setting is upper crust Nob Hill in San Francisco. The Cabot home, with the exception of the library being inexplicably painted black, is breathtaking. Lana Turner is stunning, and of course immaculately outfitted in high class fashions, shoes, hats, furs, and jewels at all times, as is Sandra Dee in her second role as Lana Turner's daughter (well, step-daughter in this one). Drama abounds and the at times weak script is handled expertly by the well seasoned cast, including Richard Basehart, Ray Walston, Virginia Grey, Anna Mae Wong, and John Saxon. While Anthony Quinn would have been ideally suited to his role of Dr. David Rivera if the film had been made fifteen years earlier, he is so badly addled by Michael Gordon's incompetent direction in this role it makes him seem a bit past it (with the exception of Pillow Talk, none of Mr. Gordon's films are particularly well directed).All things considered, this film easily meets its purpose, to entertain and is fun to watch…if you can find it. It is not out on DVD, is no longer available on VHS, and is seldom aired on television. But if you get the chance, it's well worth a watch.UPDATE: This film was release on DVD in Jan 2008, and it looks great!