Sign In / Sign Up

Dorian Gray

Dorian Gray
Release date: 1970-04-24
Rating: 5.1
Votes: 39
Genres: Horror, Drama, Thriller
London, England. Dorian Gray is a young man who somehow keeps his beauty eternally, while a mysterious portrait of himself gradually reveals his moral decay.

Reviews

CinemaSerf

CinemaSerf

I wonder what the author would make of this? It's crass and vulgar, which might have tickled him, but is also entirely unsophisticated - and I doubt that would have amused him quite so much. It's got a very early seventies look right from the outset with Helmut Berger in the title role - blonde, good looking, living a debauched lifestyle. When he is painted by "Basil" (Richard Todd) - a painting with nothing at all faulty about it; he is so struck by it that he offers to trade his soul for these looks to last eternally. What ensues is a tale of man gorgeous on the outside, but increasingly hideous underneath - and he can plainly see that as his lifestyle and character become less savoury and, frankly, depraved, so his image on the now hidden canvas becomes more ugly and distorted. His friends are powerless to stop this decline, even the ones that want to - and that doesn't include the decadent homosexual "Lord Wotton" (Herbert Lom) nor some of his less attractive lady friends - Isa Miranda ("Mrs. Ruxton") and Margaret Lee ("Gwendolyn") who successfully add oil to his fire. Berger is well cast from an aesthetic perspective, but his acting is as wooden as the frame on his portrait; Todd is just dull - a skill he frequently mastered during his long career, but Lom rescues it occasionally as the superbly sleazy queer peer and the whole Chelsea chic look to it adds well to the overall trashiness of the thing. On the whole, it's pretty cringemaking, but these stories have to reinvent themselves from time to time, and this contemporary (for 1970) version, though poor, keeps the spirit of Wilde's story alive just about.

Movie Recommendation

  • Local Hero
    Local Hero
    1983-02-17
    An American oil company sends a man to Scotland to buy up an entire village where they want to build a refinery. But things don't go as expected.
    More...
  • The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
    The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
    1970-12-04
    In 1930s Italy, a wealthy Jewish family tries to maintain their privileged lifestyle, hosting friends for tennis and parties at their villa. As anti-Semitism intensifies under Fascism, they must ultimately face the horrors of the Holocaust.
    More...
  • Women in Love
    Women in Love
    1969-09-13
    Growing up in the sheltered confines of a 1920s English coal-mining community, free-spirited sisters Gudrun and Ursula explore erotic love with a wealthy playboy and a philosophical educator, with cataclysmic results for all four.
    More...
  • Maid in Sweden
    Maid in Sweden
    1971-11-03
    Schoolgirl Inga goes to visit her sister in Stockholm and is shocked to find her living with her boyfriend, Casten.
    More...
  • The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
    The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
    2014-11-19
    Katniss Everdeen reluctantly becomes the symbol of a mass rebellion against the autocratic Capitol.
    More...
  • Parasite
    Parasite
    2019-05-30
    All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident.
    More...
  • Rear Window
    Rear Window
    1954-08-01
    A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.
    More...
  • Back to the Future
    Back to the Future
    1985-07-03
    Eighties teenager Marty McFly is accidentally sent back in time to 1955, inadvertently disrupting his parents' first meeting and attracting his mother's romantic interest. Marty must repair the damage to history by rekindling his parents' romance and - with the help of his eccentric inventor friend Doc Brown - return to 1985.
    More...
  • 12 Angry Men
    12 Angry Men
    1957-04-10
    The defense and the prosecution have rested and the jury is filing into the jury room to decide if a young Spanish-American is guilty or innocent of murdering his father. What begins as an open and shut case soon becomes a mini-drama of each of the jurors' prejudices and preconceptions about the trial, the accused, and each other.
    More...
  • Marriage Story
    Marriage Story
    2019-09-28
    A stage director and an actress struggle through a grueling, coast-to-coast divorce that pushes them to their personal extremes.
    More...
  • Joker
    Joker
    2019-10-01
    During the 1980s, a failed stand-up comedian is driven insane and turns to a life of crime and chaos in Gotham City while becoming an infamous psychopathic crime figure.
    More...
  • Titanic
    Titanic
    1997-11-18
    101-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story of her life aboard the Titanic, 84 years later. A young Rose boards the ship with her mother and fiancé. Meanwhile, Jack Dawson and Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets aboard the ship. Rose tells the whole story from Titanic's departure through to its death—on its first and last voyage—on April 15, 1912.
    More...
  • Ready Player One
    Ready Player One
    2018-03-28
    When the creator of a popular video game system dies, a virtual contest is created to compete for his fortune.
    More...
  • Alien
    Alien
    1979-05-25
    During its return to the earth, commercial spaceship Nostromo intercepts a distress signal from a distant planet. When a three-member team of the crew discovers a chamber containing thousands of eggs on the planet, a creature inside one of the eggs attacks an explorer. The entire crew is unaware of the impending nightmare set to descend upon them when the alien parasite planted inside its unfortunate host is birthed.
    More...
  • Tenet
    Tenet
    2020-08-22
    Armed with only one word - Tenet - and fighting for the survival of the entire world, the Protagonist journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time.
    More...
  • Home Alone
    Home Alone
    1990-11-16
    Eight-year-old Kevin McCallister makes the most of the situation after his family unwittingly leaves him behind when they go on Christmas vacation. When thieves try to break into his home, he puts up a fight like no other.
    More...
  • The Shawshank Redemption
    The Shawshank Redemption
    1994-09-23
    Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.
    More...
  • Shaun of the Dead
    Shaun of the Dead
    2004-04-09
    Shaun lives a supremely uneventful life, which revolves around his girlfriend, his mother, and, above all, his local pub. This gentle routine is threatened when the dead return to life and make strenuous attempts to snack on ordinary Londoners.
    More...
  • Barbie
    Barbie
    2023-07-19
    Barbie and Ken are having the time of their lives in the colorful and seemingly perfect world of Barbie Land. However, when they get a chance to go to the real world, they soon discover the joys and perils of living among humans.
    More...
  • Psycho
    Psycho
    1960-06-22
    When larcenous real estate clerk Marion Crane goes on the lam with a wad of cash and hopes of starting a new life, she ends up at the notorious Bates Motel, where manager Norman Bates cares for his housebound mother.
    More...

Similar Movies