Portrait of Jennie

In Portrait of Jennie, Joseph Cotten plays an artist, Eben Adams, who is unable to bring any true feeling to his work. While painting in Central Park one morning, Eben makes the acquaintance of a schoolgirl named Jennie (Jennifer Jones), who prattles on about things that happened years ago. ...more

Romantic fantasies like Portrait of Jennie are remarkably hard to pull off. A children's fantasy, like The Wizard of Oz, is easier, because it's already one step removed from reality. But pictures like Jennie are grounded in the real world, and the tone has to be kept exactly right or else the project veers perilously off into whimsy or preciousness; even a slight detour can be fatal, and it is to Jennie's -- and director William Dieterle's -- credit that this never happens here. It's not that ...more