May 9, 1968

There are times in the progress of civilization when ancient certainties cannot comfort and contmpeorary cliches do not illuminate. To posit art as an explanation for human evil is to be looking for religious answers without the minimal intellectual armor. But such was the situation for many in the last century: the evidence for this is the popularity of the films of Albert Lewin. Lewin was a successful cinematic producer and he personally directed six films.  He wrote the script for all, or certainly most, of these films:

The Moon and Sixpence.(1942)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
The Private Affairs of Bel Ami (1947)
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951)
Saadia (1954)
The Living Idol (1957)

All of these feature art, and in two of these films, The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Living Idol, that art is a feline statue. This explains the action in these films. Cat Statues. Now you may say, this puts the films in the genre of horror flicks. But what does that category explain really, except that if the world is nonsensical, it will not end well for people--people who want an explanation but have no power to appreciate they themselves must find answers internally.

Little has been written about Lewin, but a nameless blogger gave some biographical background for Albert Lewin. Though Lewin had an excellent education and yearned for academe, he made a fortune in Hollywood. Here is some narrative details:

Born in Brooklyn to poor Jewish parents, Lewin was a high school valedictorian, and through scholarships, went on to become a Phi Beta Kappa as an undergraduate, a Masters in English literature from Harvard, and a PhD candidate at Columbia University. There, he completed all his work except for writing the dissertation. He then spent a year teaching at the University of Missouri. Through friends, he obtained jobs in New York as both a film reviewer and a script reader. In 1923, he traveled to California for Samuel Goldwyn just as MGM was being founded. By 1927, Lewin was the head of MGM's script department, and by 1929, Lewin was a producer.

In Dorian Gray, the intellectual cohesion is that provided by an old Egyptian sphinx statue. In The Living Idol the action revolves around an archaeologist's daughter who is pursued by the spirit of an ancient Jaguar god. The actual situation is that Albert Lewin was haunted by the 20th century.