Portrait of Clare was the underrated British Director Lance Comfort's last A-movie and fared badly at the box office. In retrospect it is not difficult to see why: the UK critical tide at the time was running against melodrama, in which Comfort had scored his most notable successes in favour of realism, while the public taste had moved on in the interim. The film, too is not a complete success , although it copes reasonably well in reducing the original 900-page source novel to something manageable on screen. Today the cut-glass accents of many of the participants can be a distraction, while the central character neither suffers, or manipulates, enough to ignite the melodramatic tension such a story demands. Having said that it is still a good watch, and representing as it does the watershed in Comfort's career (after the poor success of this he was largely to work in lower-budget films, of which he made 20 before his death in the early 60's) it is still required viewing for those like me interested in the career trajectory of this, still largely unsung, director. For some of the best of Comfort, check out DAUGHTER OF DARKNESS, GREAT DAY, HATTER'S CASTLE and BANG! YOU'RE DEAD, as well as the later erstwhile programmer TOMORROW AT TEN with its early performance by Robert Shaw.
Review of Portrait of Clare
