El Retrato de Dorian Gray (lost Mexican TV drama based on Oscar Wilde novel; 1969): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 00:31, 24 January 2021

Possibly the title card, featuring a picture of the main character.

Status: Lost

El Retrato de Dorian Gray is a Mexican TV drama based on the novel of the same name by Irish author Oscar Wilde. Produced by Enrique Alonso and broadcasted on channel 4 (now channel 2, "Las Estrellas") by Telesistema Mexicano (now known as Televisa Mexico) in 1969, it was never reaired after its original run, leading to its obscurity and lack of publicly available footage.

Original Work

In 1890, Irish author Oscar Wilde published an early version of his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray for the first time on Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, and a final revised version was published by Ward Lock & Co in 1891. The novel itself was an object of controversy due to its homoerotic subtext and strong social commentary, with critics calling it "mawkish and nauseous, unclean, effeminate and contaminating".

Despite the controversy, The Picture of Dorian Gray became a literary classic due to its criticism and treatment of the time's bourgeois society, its shallowness and immorality.

Plot

The plot of El Retrato de Dorian Gray is presumably the same as the original novel's: Dorian Gray, a naive and young gentleman that becomes the favorite model of Basil Hallward, a painter who is fascinated with Dorian's youth and beauty. They soon meet Lord Henry Wotton, a close friend of Basil's, who preaches to Dorian that beauty is the only aspect of life worth pursuing. This makes Dorian wish he would sell his soul to never grow old, and that only his portrait would age; his wish is granted, and while Dorian lives out a debauched, hedonistic lifestyle, his portrait ages and decays, recording all of his sins.

Cast/Development

The cast of El Retrato de Dorian Gray featured actors of its time, such as Enrique Alvarez Felix, son of actress Maria Felix, as Dorian Gray,^[1] Carlos Bracho as Lord Henry Wotton, Carmen Montejo as Lady Wotton, and Silvia Pasquel as Sybil Vane.

Although biographies of Enrique Alvarez Felix mention this show, Televisa's official website and other official media have no records of it. Some fansites have scavenged information on this show, with little cast information being available. Only an IMDB page says anything about the cast, and only one still of Carlos Bracho as Lord Henry has been found.

IMDB claims that the show was recorded in black and white; the Spanish Wikipedia page for the show claims that this was Televisa's first drama broadcast in color, but also mentions that the recordings were in B/W. Only three episodes were produced or filmed, but the plot in each one is unknown.

Availability

This show has never been reaired or made available on Televisa's official streaming network Blim or even in bootleg recordings. It has never been released on home video, and given Televisa's silence about it, it might never be re-released. It is believed that this happened because Televisa, in the 1980s, announced a ban on all homosexual actors and actresses. It is also probably that the recordings were lost after 1985 Mexico Earthquake, that destroyed the buildings of Televisa Chapultepec.

Gallery

Promotional still, featuring Enrique Alvarez Felix.
Carlos Bracho, performing Lord Henry Wooton.

External Links

IMDb page about the show. Retrieved 23 Nov '18
A Spanish Wikipedia article about the show. Retrieved 23 Nov '18

Reference

↑ Archived page listing all of Enrique Alvarez Felix's leading roles. Retrieved 23 Nov '18

[1] Archived page listing all of Enrique Alvarez Felix's leading roles. Retrieved 23 Nov '18

[1]

@@ Line 2: / Line 2: @@
 |title=<center>El retrato de Dorian Gray (The Picture of Dorian Gray)</center>
 |image=El_retrato_de_Dorian.jpg
-|imagecaption=Possibly the title card of the TV Drama, featuring a picture of the main character.
+|imagecaption=Possibly the title card, featuring a picture of the main character.
 |status=<span style="color:red;">'''Lost'''</span>
 }}
-On 1890, the irish author Oscar Wilde published an early version of his novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" for the first time on the ''Lippincott's Monthly Magazine''. Later on 1891, the final revised version was published by Ward Lock & Co. The novel itself was object of controversy, because it was " 'mawkish and nauseous, unclean, effeminate and contaminating". Since the novel showed a homoerotic nature and a strong criticism o the society of that times, the controversy around it leaded to a series of trials against Oscar Wilde, finishing on the arrest of Wilde, passing two years of forced jobs on the Newgate Prison, later moved to Pentonville Prison, later to Wandsworth Prison, and finally to Reading Gaol (where Wilde wrote ''The Ballad of Reading Gaol'').
+'''''El Retrato de Dorian Gray''''' is a Mexican TV drama based on the novel of the same name by Irish author Oscar Wilde. Produced by Enrique Alonso and broadcasted on channel 4 (now channel 2, "Las Estrellas") by Telesistema Mexicano (now known as Televisa Mexico) in 1969, it was never reaired after its original run, leading to its obscurity and lack of publicly available footage.
-The Picture of Dorian Gray, even with all the controversy and the censorship, became a universal classic of literature. This because of the topics that were treated and criticized, like the burguess society and the immorality around it.
+==Original Work==
+In 1890, Irish author Oscar Wilde published an early version of his novel ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' for the first time on ''Lippincott's Monthly Magazine'', and a final revised version was published by Ward Lock & Co in 1891. The novel itself was an object of controversy due to its homoerotic subtext and strong social commentary, with critics calling it "mawkish and nauseous, unclean, effeminate and contaminating".
-The first adaptation of the novel to cinema was on 1945, with the homonim movie "The Picture of Dorian Gray", starring Hurd Hatfield, George Sanders y Angela Lansbury.
+Despite the controversy, ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' became a literary classic due to its criticism and treatment of the time's bourgeois society, its shallowness and immorality.
-A long line of adaptations and based-of works came along the time. With this line of works, soon at 1969 came the mexican TV Drama "El Retrato de Dorian Gray", produced by Enrique Alonso and broadcasted on channel 4 (now channel 2, "Las Estrellas"), by Telesistema Mexicano (known today as Televisa Mexico).
+==Plot==
+The plot of ''El Retrato de Dorian Gray'' is presumably the same as the original novel's: Dorian Gray, a naive and young gentleman that becomes the favorite model of Basil Hallward, a painter who is fascinated with Dorian's youth and beauty. They soon meet Lord Henry Wotton, a close friend of Basil's, who preaches to Dorian that beauty is the only aspect of life worth pursuing. This makes Dorian wish he would sell his soul to never grow old, and that only his portrait would age; his wish is granted, and while Dorian lives out a debauched, hedonistic lifestyle, his portrait ages and decays, recording all of his sins.
-== Plot ==
+==Cast/Development==
-The plot is presumably the same as the original novel, centering into Dorian Gray, a naive and young gentleman that becomes the favorite model of Basile Hallward, a painter who is fascinated with the youth and beauty of Gray. This soon meets Lord Henry Wooton, a close friend of Basile, who gives some sort of advice to Dorian, about seize his youth and beauty and live his life as he wants. Unfortunately, this advice makes Dorian to wish to never grow old and to not lose his beauty, making unconsciously a pact with the devil to make this come true.
+The cast of ''El Retrato de Dorian Gray'' featured actors of its time, such as Enrique Alvarez Felix, son of actress Maria Felix, as Dorian Gray,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20140109210135/http://www.seriesnow.com/latinamerican-actors/enrique-alvarez-felix.html Archived page listing all of Enrique Alvarez Felix's leading roles.] Retrieved 23 Nov '18</ref> Carlos Bracho as Lord Henry Wotton, Carmen Montejo as Lady Wotton, and Silvia Pasquel as Sybil Vane.
-== Cast ==
+Although biographies of Enrique Alvarez Felix mention this show, Televisa's official website and other official media have no records of it. Some fansites have scavenged information on this show, with little cast information being available. Only an IMDB page says anything about the cast, and only one still of Carlos Bracho as Lord Henry has been found.
-The cast of the drama was composed of actors of the time, featuring Enrique Alvarez Felix, son of the actress Maria Felix, as Dorian Gray<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20140109210135/http://www.seriesnow.com/latinamerican-actors/enrique-alvarez-felix.html WebArchive page where was listed all the protagonic roles of Alvarez Felix.] Retrieved 19 Jan '14</ref>. On the role of Lord Henry Wooton performed Carlos Bracho, Carmen Montejo as Lady Wooton, and Silvia Pasquel as Sybil Vane.
-Although this work is referenced on the biografic articles about Enrique Alvarez Felix, there is no register of the drama on the official Televisa website, along as is no mentioned on other official media. However, some fansites has collected information about this show. Unfortunately, there are very little description about it. Only an IMDB page<ref>[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0373599/ IMDb page about the show]</ref> has some information, and only one still of Carlos Bracho on his role of Lord Henry has been found.
+IMDB claims that the show was recorded in black and white; the Spanish Wikipedia page for the show claims that this was Televisa's first drama broadcast in color, but also mentions that the recordings were in B/W. Only three episodes were produced or filmed, but the plot in each one is unknown.
-On the IMDB website, it is said that the show was recorded on B/W format, although on Wikipedia page it is said that was the first TV Drama broadcasted on color, but mentions too that the recordings were on B/W<ref>[https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_retrato_de_Dorian_Gray_(telenovela) Wikipedia article about the show] in spanish</ref>. It is possibly that it was recolored to it official broadcast, but this information remains unconfirmed. Only three chapters were produced or recorded, but is unknown the plot of each one.
+==Availability==
+This show has never been reaired or made available on Televisa's official streaming network Blim or even in bootleg recordings. It has never been released on home video, and given Televisa's silence about it, it might never be re-released. It is believed that this happened because Televisa, in the 1980s, announced a ban on all homosexual actors and actresses. It is also probably that the recordings were lost after 1985 Mexico Earthquake, that destroyed the buildings of Televisa Chapultepec.
-== Availabity ==
+==Gallery==
-There has not been any retransmission of the drama, neither on any streaming pirate site, video sites as YouTube or Dailymotion, even on the Televisa official streaming network Blim. There is neither any DVD or BluRay edition of this classic, and for the silence that Televisa and crew has remained about the TV show, is probably that it would never see the light again.
+<gallery mode=packed heights=175px>
-It is believed that this happens because on the decade of 80s, Televisa announced that they would ban all the actors and actresses who were homosexual. A kind of ironic decision, thinking about they made a drama based on a novel fuelled with homoerotic tendences. Even when at the end after some protests around the topic, the actors were not removed from their labours, but apparently some works that could give hints about homosexuality
-== Gallery ==
-<gallery>
 El_retrato_de_dorian_gray_tv_series-403524138-mmed.jpg|Promotional still, featuring Enrique Alvarez Felix.
 Lord Henry Carlos Bracho.jpeg|Carlos Bracho, performing Lord Henry Wooton.
 </gallery>
+==External Links==
+*[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0373599/ IMDb page about the show.] Retrieved 23 Nov '18
+*[https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_retrato_de_Dorian_Gray_(telenovela) A Spanish Wikipedia article about the show.] Retrieved 23 Nov '18
+==Reference==
+{{reflist}}
-== References ==
+[[Category:Lost TV|Retrato de Dorian Gray]]
+[[Category:Completely lost media|Retrato de Dorian Gray]]