Portrait from Life


Portrait from Life is a 1948 British drama film directed by Terence Fisher and starring Mai Zetterling, Robert Beatty and Guy Rolfe.

Plot

A British Army Officer Major Lawrence is on Leave from being Stationed in Germany just after WW2 when he sees a painting of a beautiful young girl in a London Art Gallery. While viewing the painting he is approached by an old man Professor Franz Menzel, who escaped from Nazi Germany in the 1930s having to leave his family behind and who claims to be the young girl's father. Major Lawrence agrees with the old man to find the young girl when he returns to Germany. On returning to occupied Germany and after a long search Major Lawrence eventually tracks down the young girl but she is suffering from amnesia and living with a German couple who claim to be her parents. As Lawrence investigates, the circumstances of the young girl's past become more complicated.

Partial cast

The New York Times wrote, "the new picture at the Little Carnegie stems from an intriguing idea, and there are several very effective sequences in the drama, plus a fine performance by the Swedish actress, Mai Zetterling. Indeed, if the whole of The Girl in the Painting were as good as its parts, the posting of this notice would be a much more pleasant task. Too much, rather than too little, story and plodding direction are the principal faults"; while Allmovie described it as "an over-orchestrated "guilty pleasure" from the glory days of British romance pictures."

Box office

The film made a profit of £4,100.