Thank goodness for Turner Classic Movies. TV is very very bad and Erica and I watch TCM almost every night now. Last night was “Portrait of Jennie” from 1948. It is the story of an artist (Joseph Cotton) who is haunted by the ghost of a beautiful woman (Jennifer Jones). The woman first appears to Cotton as a girl and then reappears as she grows up, usually during some great change in her life. The artist’s friends think he’s crazy. Naturally the artist and the ghost fall in love. He traces who she is/was and then discovers that she was killed in a storm at a lighthouse in Cape Code. (It’s always good to have a at least one spooky scene in New England.) It turns out that the Artist and Ghost are destined for love, but have been separated by an accident of time.
The move is in black and white, but at the end it explodes into eerie colors during the storm. I was afraid the ending would be bad, but it turned out just right – romantic but sad.
I added it to my 13 great ghost movies lens. I now have 14 movies, but I am not changing the title.