(William Dieterle, US 1948, 86 min., 35mm)
David O. Selznick muse Jennifer Jones plays Joseph Cotten’s muse in this magical realist story about the elusive nature of love. Eben Adams, (Cotten) a struggling painter, meets a young Jennie Appleton (Jones) in Central Park. Infatuated, he wants to spend more time with her, but when she suddenly disappears he sketches her from memory, changing his art and his fortune. When he sees her again, she has aged well beyond the time gap and Eben must find a way to hold on to this mysterious stranger. This production throws everything at the screen: a Technicolor shot; tinting and toning, a rarity in the sound era; and the rarely-used Magnascope process, demonstrating the importance of presentation and the Dryden Theatre’s chameleonic abilities to re-create multiple exhibition formats.