Jan 9 movie: Portrait of Jennie. A strange, thoughtful movie about a struggling painter (Joseph Cotten) who meets and falls in love with a woman (Jennifer Jones) living outside time. I can't explain it better than that and I'd rather you see it than read my hamfisted attempt to describe the plot. Robert Osborne said that Selznick originally planned to make this movie with Shirley Temple, and film it over the course of five years so that the actor would actually age along with the character. But then he met and fell for Jennifer Jones, and good thing too because I can't imagine anyone else in this movie. She does an amazing job of portraying Jennie as a little girl, teenager and then mature woman, without modern make-up techniques to do the work for her.
The funny thing about this movie is that I've seen it at least once before, but I remembered the ending completely wrong. I won't say what I thought because that would give everything away. But I will say that I liked my ending better. It was more of a gothic romance type ending.
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