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Dorian Gray More at IMDbPro »
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| Index | 14 reviews in total |
22 out of 23 people found the following review useful:
Sleazy Vulgar Trash - Wilde Would Love It!, 19 March 2002
Author:
david melville (dwingrove@qmuc.ac.uk) from Edinburgh, Scotland
Updated to the Swinging Sixties, produced by infamous exploitation guru
Harry Alan Towers and directed by a one-time cameraman from 'spaghetti'
Westerns, this is - incredibly enough! - one of the best versions of Oscar
Wilde's oft-filmed Decadent classic. At the very least, such a hedonistic
decade allows for a frank portrayal of Dorian's bisexuality, promiscuity and
drug addiction - hinted at so strongly in the novel, but barely glimpsed in
Albert Lewin's 1945 film classic.
Its trump card is the presence of gorgeous Helmut Berger as 'the god named
Dorian' (to quote the Italian title). If there was ever a more inspired bit
of casting in film history, I can't think of it right now. Best known as the
protege of Luchino Visconti, the beauteous Berger here proves himself as an
actor in his own right. In or out of his deliciously camp Carnaby Street
wardrobe, Berger glows with golden-limbed hedonism and seductive evil!
Backing him up is a splendid supporting cast. Herbert Lom as the sinister
gay aesthete Lord Henry Wotton, whose barbed witticisms are lifted directly
from Wilde. Margaret Lee and Eleonora Rossi Drago as two Sapphic
jet-setters. Isa Miranda as a raunchy and vulgar American millionairess.
(Her outfits would make Fellini blush for shame!) Not too sure about
Euro-porn starlet Marie Liljedahl and Richard Todd is a bore as the painter
Basil Hallward.
But even when the acting falters, the outrageously kitsch costumes and
settings make this film a visual delight! Will I ever recover from that
first sight of Dorian's zebra-lined 60s shag pad? Somehow I doubt it. This
whole film is sleazy, trashy, vulgar, over-the-top...a shameless piece of
camp on every level. Poor old Oscar Wilde would have adored every minute of
it! And so do I!
10 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Oscar Wilde would have liked this, 11 January 2001
Author:
rundbauchdodo from Zürich, Switzerland
Massimo Dallamano's film of Oscar Wilde's work places the story to the
London of the 1960s. Even though many reviews obviously didn't like this
and
wrote rather negative about the film, I think the story works surprisingly
well.
Helmut Berger is excellent and undeniably gorgeous as the (in the end
tragic) title character, but also the other actors deliver their best.
Especially Herbert Lom as Henry Wotton acts absolutely great, and most of
the women are not only very pretty, but also deliver convincing
performances.
All in all, "Dorian Gray" surely is the most unusual film version of the
writing, it is rather drama than horror, but that's what Oscar Wilde's
work
is too, isn't it? I guess that Oscar Wilde would have liked
this.
6 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Helmut Berger is Dorian Gray, 9 September 2007
Author:
wes-connors from Earth
The story is familiar - Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray wishes his painting
would grow old whilst he remain young. This film version certainly does
not equal the production quality of Albert Lewin's "The Picture of
Dorian Gray" (1945), but it is superior in several other ways.
Foremost, the casting of Helmut Berger as Dorian is perfect. Mr. Berger
has the "beautiful/handsome" balance necessary to essay the role; he
matches his looks with a fine performance, taking Dorian from youth to
decadence. Richard Todd (as Basil) and Herbert Lom (as Henry) support
Berger well. Dorian's decadent slide is more appropriately depicted in
this "modernized" version; however, the sexual situations run on way
too long - for a time, the screen is filled with one sexual romp after
another; and, the film loses focus. The sexual situations must have
been very risqué at the time, but "Dorian Gray" is not "X-rated". The
film may remain titillating because there are numerous sexual
escapades; and, Mr. Berger and the women are very attractive.
The final "confrontation" between Dorian and Basil is used to
effectively begin this version with a flashback; it might have helped
to begin the 1945 version in this manner. The passage of time could
have been better depicted during the early part (the 1940s-1950s) of
this 1970 version, but the 1960s look terrific. The aging of Dorian's
portrait is much more realistic in this version, and it somehow seems
much truer to the spirit of Oscar Wilde's original work.
******* Dorian Gray (4/24/70) Massimo Dallamano ~ Helmut Berger,
Herbert Lom, Richard Todd, Marie Liljedahl
8 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
Good Contemporary Adaptation of a Classic Novel, 4 January 2007
Author:
Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
In the late 60's in London, the model Dorian Gray (Helmut Berger) meets
the aspirant actress Sybil Vane (Marie Liljedahl) and they fall in love
for each other. Meanwhile, his friend Basil Hallward (Richard Todd)
concludes his painting, and Dorian Gray, fascinated with the picture,
proposes the devil to exchange his soul per a permanent youth and
beauty. From this moment on, the character and behavior of the former
sweet Dorian changes and he becomes a corrupt and amoral man, sex
driven and capable of destroying many lives inclusive Sibyl's. While
his friends grow older, Dorian remains young never aging, but his
painting discloses his innermost ugliness, fruit of his despicable
social conduct.
"Dorian Gray" is a good contemporary adaptation of the famous Oscar
Wilde's classic novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray", which I believe is
one of the books most read, or at least known, worldwide. Everybody is
familiarized with this dramatic and evil story. The handsome Helmut
Berger fits perfectly to the role and I really liked this underrated
movie. Massimo Dallamano's version is original, attractive and has a
good international cast. My vote is seven.
Title (Brazil): "O Retrato de Dorian Gray" ("The Picture of Dorian
Gray")
4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Memorable because it's so trashy, 9 April 2008
Author:
Bryce David
Once you see DORIAN GRAY you can't forget it. It's an updated version
of the famous story, updated for the swinging 60s/70s which today is
now outdated, which only adds to its many memorable aspects.
There's no point of giving a brief synopsis of the story as we all know
it's about a man who remains perpetually young while a painting of
himself ages in the attic. But what's really "new" or different here is
the tone. It's trashy or should I say Eurotrashy. Helmut Berger plays
Dorian Gray as a bisexual jet-setter who likes to mingle with beautiful
young women but also with men on the side. The moral of the story is
that Dorian has no morals and Helmut is perfectly cast as Dorian.
The one big problem with this version is that it was made a bit too
early in the 70s. Had this been made in the mid to late 70s, there
would have been a bit more sex or violence. It was sorta ahead of its
times with the lurid update of the Dorian Gray story but it could have
used a bit more explicitness to make it more true to its intentions. As
it is, it hints at things it almost never shows and it's just a big
tease of sorts. With a bit more sex it could have enjoyed a wider
success like the Emmanuelle films.
But the main reason to watch DORIAN GRAY is for Helmut. It's one of his
few starring roles and he shines here as the decadent title character.
Trashy fun!
7 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
Better than expected, 18 February 2001
Author:
Angeneer from Athens, Greece
I was certain that no cinematic representation would do justice to the book. However, the clever idea of making a contemporary film made it interesting and original. Even the focus on Helmut Berger looks is not faulty, since this is the spirit of the book. Thankfully, all the girls were also very pretty. Although it's no masterpiece on its own right, Oscar Wilde would have liked it.
3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Berger makes the perfect Dorian Gray, 11 December 2009
Author:
jaibo from England
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Probably the best screen version of Oscar Wilde's novel, mostly due to
the casting of Helmet Berger as Dorian. Berger is a fascinating actor,
physically beautiful but with a classic European aristocratic sense of
petulance, superiority and cat-like selfishness (the film's first
sequence ends with Dorian stroking a black cat).
The film is updated to the fag-end of the swinging sixties in the city
at the heart of the era, London, when and where it was becoming
apparent to everyone that clubbing, screwing around and dressing in the
latest designer fashions did not a satisfying life make. Dorian is the
employment free scion of some wealthy family, trading on his looks and
the land left to him in his parent's will. He falls in with some
fashionable upper class bohemians – Richard Todd's painter Basil
Hallwood and Herbert Lom's homosexual wit Henry Wotton. At the same
time he picks up a pretty actress playing Juliet at some crummy fringe
theatre, Sybil Vane. The film's version of the Sybil and Dorian affair
gives her a little more mouth, pluck and vibrancy than the novel or
most adaptations, and she is as to blame as he when the relationship
goes belly up, with her jealousy and nagging – even her death seems
more an unhappy accident than the wilful, victimized suicide of Wilde's
book.
Once Sybil has died and shortly after Dorian has made the usual wish to
sell his soul in front of Basil's picture, the film turns into an
episodic trawl through the sexual conquests of the anti-hero, who with
Berger's looks and body understandably is able to seduce anyone. Old
women pay for it, wives stray from their husbands and kinky scene
hangers-on take a beating from his belt, but Dorian soon gets a taste
for the boys as well as the girls, not entirely understandable given
that his first taste of gay sex is with Lom in the shower! But he's
cruising the yachts along the marina on the Riviera and picking up
black men from the cabin crews.
The film is racy for its time, and probably (outside of porn takes) the
most raunchy version of the book to have hit the screen; nevertheless,
the sex is pretty non-explicit and Berger can be seen rather too
obviously hiding his genitals in the scenes where he is nude. Yet each
of the sexual episodes plants the seed of a fantasy scenario in the
audiences mind, and they are left to guess quite what Dorian is doing
behind his old mare of a sponsor when he stands behind her, causing her
to gasp, at a stable door, what exactly Dorian and that black man are
doing to get up to when they leave the public toilet they are admiring
each other at the urinals in, and quite what is that black magic
ceremony Dorian attends at "the house of pleasure." The film's opening
sequence is shot from Dorian's point of view as he staggers out of the
room in which he has killed Basil (it's a flash-forwards) and at one
point he gazes at himself in the mirror; the film encourages its
audience to catch themselves gazing at Berger, and to fill in the
things which its moving pictures of Dorian Gray leave out.
Near the end, Dorian (who has increasingly been dressed in costumes
which teeter between sexy and ludicrous) stalks down somewhere like the
King's Road in an absurd Zebra-striped costume, turning everyone's head
but utterly hollow in himself. So, the film suggests, ends the decade
of free love, fashion and frolics – an attractive but hollow shell
doomed to suicide or age, both of which come together in the film's
close-to-the-book final scene.
Massimo Dallamano shoots the film like a cross between a travelogue and
a giallo, which feels appropriate, and Peppino De Luca exquisitely
scores it to match. There's a Raro Video DVD release which has a lovely
to look at transfer and includes English and Italian language tracks;
sadly, the sound is rather mashed and fuzzy but the film is well worth
seeing as a visual feast for the eye, in which one can't help but fall
under the spell of Berger as Dorian.
2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Boys keep swinging, 5 October 2009
Author:
CaligulaAzrael from Warsaw, Poland
Dorian Gray from the great novel by Oscar Wilde lives in London during 1960's. He's beautiful, he's charming and he's totally depraved. Just like in the book, but here there is much more of eroticism. To tell you the truth, I was quite surprised, because I thought it will be much worse. Thanks God, we have in here Helmut Berger - he's really the best choice to play Dorian and he makes this movie worth watching. If you want to know how would look Wilde's hero during the "peace-flowers-freedom-happines" times, then you should find this one and give it a try. Although I prefer the 1945 Holyywood version, this is really not bad.
2 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Great version of a familiar tale, 22 September 2006
Author:
Thomasco from Berlin
I enjoyed seeing this on TV over the years. It is typical of pictures
that came out during that time period. No not all were perfect with
exquisite editing or immaculate soundtrack and how all the modern
critics insist a picture must be perfect or you may not like it. Wrong.
It is art and a story is told and some B-grade films enjoy tremendous
adoration. I like how this showed the guy as basically decadent and
wanting to have his fun and all the props are contemporary so the film
is a wonderful time capsule. The target audience would seem to be men
IMHO. I recommend you watch it, should it ever come on TV where you
live, but I doubt it will ever be released to DVD.
The film is an easy, relaxed film, enjoyable to watch, and captures the
essence of the idea well -- the question is whether you will ever be
able to see it. These old gems are hard to find.
1 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Do I make you horny, baby?, 26 February 2010
Author:
ptb-8 from Australia
Somewhere between EEK! and chic, this swinging London version of Dorian Gray, made in 1969 and starring the very handsome Helmet Berger (two slices of bread and a motorbike) is one of the great new century cinema fiasco movies. You will really love this gloriously awful film in all it's orange and white arty farty glory. Richard Todd paints the picture of the story and hairy Herbert Lom ponces about (even under the shower in one scream inducing shot) as a gay fwend.... with various unknown actresses with twee names like Sybil and Gwendoline all of whom get shafted and then tossed off. Imagine an Austin Powers remake today? Well this is the real thing except for the startling beauty of a well cast Helmet (so to speak). DORIAN GRAY 1970 is a fantastic experience for your friends to get slightly tipsy and watch together. My favorite bit is the shag in the field where the camera pans to show Mr Berger's bum with a massive bug sitting on it. Other hilarious moments show Dorian cruising the marina for a tug, some old dame at the races getting serviced in a stable and gasping for astonished air, and of course the horrible painting that looks like a green and purple vomit with eyes. Warm up the cheap champagne, prep the DVD player, call the friends over, serve cheese and pineapple chunks and whack on DORIAN GRAY. Your friends will never forgive or forget.
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