My movie watch on 10 August 2023 was my VHS video of the fantasy/horror film The Secret of Dorian Gray, a joint Italian-German-British production.
Directed by Massimo Dallamano, who also co-wrote its screenplay, and released in 1970 by Constantin Films and American International Pictures, The Secret of Dorian Gray (also variously released as The Sins of Dorian Gray, The Evils of Dorian Gray, and, simply, Dorian Gray) is of course based upon Oscar Wilde's famous but only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), which in turn was based upon Wilde's own shorter novella of the same title that had been published the previous year.
There have been several other notable movie versions of this novel but, as far as I know, this present one reviewed by me here is the only such version set in the modern day, i.e. the late 1960s, rather than in Wilde's Victorian time period. Consequently, there are such singular sights to behold as double-decker buses driving through Dorian's home city of London and Dorian himself wearing jeans.
Otherwise, the movie stays pretty faithful to the twisted tale of how the youthful, incomparably handsome, and originally benevolent Dorian becomes so enamoured by a spectacular almost full-length painting of himself produced by artist friend Basil Hallward that he wishes in quasi-Faustian style to stay forever young and for the painting to age instead. Inexplicably, Dorian's wish comes true, forcing him to lock the ever-changing painting out of public sight in his attic (and telling no-one about what is happening with it, until Basil comes calling one fateful fatal day...).
Moreover, because he never ages, Dorian is able to indulge in all manner of sins, vices, and perversions, secure in the secret knowledge that no trace or clue of such debauchery will ever pervade and corrupt his perfect, unblemished visage, appearing instead upon his portrait, which becomes ever more dissipated and hideous. However, fate has a nasty knack of catching up with people like Dorian, who consider themselves beyond retribution...
Dating back as far as 1910, there have been many other big- (and small-) screen versions of this fantastical philosophizing tale, originally told in such bedazzling prose that only Wilde could have penned. These have featured such diverse stars in the title role as Hurd Hatfield, Jeremy Brett, John Fraser, Shane Briant, Peter Firth, Josh Duhamel, David Gallagher, and Ben Barnes, to name but a few. There was even a female Dorian Gray, played by Belinda Bauer, in the 1983 TV movie The Sins of Dorian Gray (in a memorable twist to the familiar tale, Dorian here is an actress and photographic model who stays forever young, and it is her audition videotape's portrayal of her that ages).
In this present movie, however, the noxiously narcissistic Dorian is played to perfection in best blond-haired/blue-eyed (as Wilde himself had described him) but also suitably swinging-60s himbo style by Helmut Berger. He is ably supported by Richard Todd as Dorian's doomed artist friend Basil; by Marie Liljedahl as Dorian's cruelly-demoralised, abandoned lover Sybil Vane; and by Herbert Lom in truly excellent form as the mesmerizing but malign, hedonistic, and wholly amoral Sir Henry Wotton, who initially lures but subsequently overtly leads Dorian ever further down the dark, decadent road to his ultimate, inevitable damnation.
The Secret of Dorian Gray is an always interesting, visually sumptuous movie updating of Wilde's macabre Victorian chiller, but its tagline describing Dorian readily confirms that Wilde's integral storyline remains unchanged: "He is twenty-one. He has been twenty-one for almost half a century".
If you'd like to watch The Secret of Dorian Gray free of charge and in its entirety, you can currently do so on YouTube by clicking here. Or click here to check out an official theatrical trailer for it on YouTube.
Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.
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