hidden pictures
by Douglas Messerli
Over the years, one of
the most popular of LGBTQ fictions was perhaps the hardest one to actually pin
down as representing the gay experience. There is no question that Oscar
Wilde’s renowned fiction about a handsome, apparently bisexual man, whose beauty
attracts both sexes represents the kind of closeted condition of the homosexual
in disapproving societies. But to actually pin Dorian Gray to gay sexual
activity is difficult unless you more fully examine his relationships with the
painter Basil Hallward, the influences upon his character of Lord Henry Wotton,
and, in particular, his former relationship with Alan Campbell over whom Dorian
evidently holds some sort of power of blackmail, presumably their own sexual
relationship including a letter. But all of these subtleties were surely
difficult to express in the short silent versions which were highly popular in
the second decade of the 20th century.
The subject was filmed in Denmark, the
US, Russia, Germany, and Hungary, but all of these versions are lost and we
have only sparse listings and commentary on them. In a sense they have all
become “hidden” versions the The Picture just as surely as Dorian’s own
locked-away portrait.
the
picture of dorian gray
Axel Strøm (writer,
based on the fiction by Oscar Wilde, and director) Dorian Grays Portræt (The
Picture of Dorian Gray) / 1910 || lost
film
What appears to be the
very first cinematic adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray
was directed by the Danish filmmaker Axel Strøm and released on October
6, 1910. The silent film was produced by Regia Kunstfilms with cinematography
by Mads Anton Madsen.
Valdemar Psilander played Dorian Gray,
with Clara Pontoppidan playing a character named Clara Wieth, presumably the
role of Sybil Vane in the original book. Other actors included Adam Poulsen and
Henrik Malberg.
Since the film is lost we have no idea
what scenes the film portrayed from Wilde’s original text or whether these
contained any overt homosexual references. However, In his Queer Cinema: The
Film Reader Henry Benshoff notes that in the 1910s films begin to explore
for the first time “the monstrous as expressed in the gothic literature of the
nineteenth century.” Films such as Edison’s Frankenstein (1910) and
D. W. Griffith’s adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” The
Avenging Conscience (1914), along with seven versions of The Picture of
Dorian Gray began to explore the male monsters of the previous century,
with the 1917 version of Wilde’s story, in particular, characterizing Dorian
Gray as the devil. Clearly, these several depictions of Wilde’s Gray began to
establish the homosexual as a monster, a danger to the society at large.
Los Angeles, April 10,
2021
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the
picture of dorian gray
Lois Weber (screenplay),
Phillips Smalley (director) The Picture of Dorian Gray / 1913 || lost film
Very little is known
about the lost 1913 version of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray,
and some film historians now doubt whether this version of the film ever
existed, although credits and the specific release date of March 17, 1913 are
repeated on the internet Wikipedia and IMDb sites. This version was first
mentioned in the 1966 copy of Films In Review.
If these sources are correct, the cast of
the 16-minute short starred Wallace Reid as Dorian, with Lois Weber presumably
playing Sybil Vane, and the director Phillips Smalley performing the role of
Lord Henry Wotton. New York Motion Picture Company is listed as the producer.
What scenes from Wilde’s novel were
adapted for this short is not known, along with any information of whether
there are any implications in the work of homosexuality other than Wilde’s
original coded text.
Los Angeles, April 10,
2021
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the
picture of dorian gray (1915)
Vsevolod Meyerhold and
Mikhail Doronin (text, based on Oscar Wilde’s fiction, and directors) Portret Doryana Greya (The Picture of Dorian Gray) / 1915 || lost film
Perhaps the most
prestigious of the now lost Dorian Gray films was the 1915 silent, 22-minute
film directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold and Mikhail Doronin in 1915. That film,
with Aleksandr Levitsky serving as cinematographer featured a woman, Varnara
Yanova as Dorian Gray, emphasizing the beautiful young man’s androgyny, and
featured Meyerhold himself as Lord Henry
Wotton. Other members of the cast included
Paola Belova, Gustav Enriton, Yelizaveta Uvarova, Alexandre Volkoff and Doronin
playing other unnamed characters. The art direction was by Vladimir Yegorov.
A long essay on the script has been
published which basically describes the film as introducing biographical
information about Dorian Gray as well as linking the character with Wilde
himself, based on his notion that a work of art always most resembles the
artist himself.
Meyerhold’s company was noted for its
international theater productions of plays by Ernst Toller, Vladimir
Mayakovsky, Emile Verhaeren and numerous others along with two other films by fin-de-siècle
authors. But at this point in his career Meyerhold had not yet found his
audience, most the films being ignored also in the West, and, accordingly,
“lost.”
As one unnamed commentator put it:
“...we can only imagine
what this film was like, based on the few stills in circulation. Meyerhold
frequently made use of modern art trends, in particular Constructivism, German
Expressionism and Cubism (employing the likes of Aleksandr Rodchenko and Aleksandra
Exter to design sets), and it is likely that he did so with this picture.
Indeed, one critic has claimed that if Dorian Gray had been seen in the
West before Wiene’s Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari, then it might have
won similar acclaim and exerted a much higher level of influence.
As it stands, the film was not noted until
it was too late, and now it, like Meyerhold’s film of Stanislaw Przybyszewski’s
novel The Strong Man, no longer exists. However,
Meyerhold’s theoretical works on theatre have survived, despite the director’s
execution under order of Stalin in 1939-40 (due to his refusal to toe the Party
line during the 1928-32 Cultural Revolution), and they are probably the most
useful tools for anyone wishing to inform themselves about the works of this
great director.”
Above is a poster for the film and a
frame from the film itself.
Los Angeles, April 10,
2021
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the sympathetic decadent
Richard Oswald (screenwriter, based on the fiction by Oscar Wilde, and
director) Das bildnis des Dorian Gray (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
/ 1917 || lost film
Although it still
appears on some lists of productions as an extant film, the German cinematic
version of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Das
Bildnis des Dorian Gray, directed by Richard Oswald and released in July
1917 has for long been considered a lost film.
This version, unlike most of the previous
adaptions, was a full five-act, 80-minute feature starring the German matinee
idol, Bernd Aldor, this the first of some 20 film roles in which he starred
between 1917-1931.
He often portrayed a
detective, but also worked regularly with Oswald acting roles of other kinds of
characters in a 1917 film about venereal disease Es Werde Licht!, Des
goldes Fluch (God’s Curse, 1917), Der lbebende Leichnam (The
Living Corpse, 1918), and Die seltsame Geschichte des Bron Torelli (The
Strange Tale of Baron Torelli, 1918).
From the pictures we have of this
production, Aldor evidently played Dorian Gray as a sailor, although another
shot of him before the portrait represents him as wearing a Japanese-like robe.
Ernst Pittschau appeared as Sir Henry Wotton, Ernst Ludwig as Basil Hallward,
Lea Lara as Sibyl Vane, and Andreas Van Horn as Dorian’s ex-college chum Alan
Campbell.
The cinematographer was Max
Fassbender and the sets were designed by Manfred Noa.
Reviewers of the day
praised its relative faithfulness to the original text, and for the empathy the
director created for the lead figure Aldor.
The poster for the film
quite nicely catches the fin de siècle spirit of the original.
Los Angeles, June 8, 2021
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lugosi as a wit?
József Pakots
(screenplay, based on the fiction by Oscar Wilde), Alfréd Deésy (director) Az
Élet királya (King of Life) / 1918 || lost film
In hindsight it
appears that one of the requirements that anyone undertaking to film a version
of Oscar Wilde’s fiction The Picture of Dorian Gray is that, even if
that work were to become enormously popular, it would ultimately be lost to
future generations.
Just as with the early
Danish, US, Russian, and German productions of Dorian Gray the Hungarian
1918 film, Az Élet királya (King of Life),
directed by Alfréd Deésy, is a lost film.
The casting of actor Béla Lugosi as Lord
Henry Wotton (in this version named Arisztid Olt) is of particular interest.
It’s interesting to imagine the rather lugubriously speaking Dracula playing
the fast-quipping wit Wotton. Norbert Dán was Dorian Gray, opposite Ila Lóth as
Sibyl Vane. The painter Basil Hallward was performed by Gusztáv Turán.
Wilde’s novel was adapted
by József Pakots, with cinematography by Károly
Vass.
Deésy
was a major figure of Hungarian silent filmmaking, shooting some 17 silent
films including one on Casanova and another on Sacco and Vanzetti, but very few
of his silent works have survived. After World II, Deésy also made feature
sound films and continued to work until his death in 1961 at the age of 83.
Like the others playing
Gray, Norbert Dán was an extremely handsome matinee idol, who would have likely
drawn a great many fans to the movie.
Los Angeles, June 10, 2021
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