THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, NUMISMATIST

Last night I watched the movie, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1945), on TCM (Turner Classic Movies). This was probably only the second time in my memory that I had seen this film.

There is a scene in the film where Dorian is approached by the painter of his portrait, Basil who arrives to question Dorian about rumours of his indulgences.

In the scene Dorian walks over to a large wall cabinet and takes from it a large book, a box with a handle on the top of it and a jeweler's tray.

He sits down at a table, opens the book and the box and sets down the tray. The jeweler's tray has many coins in it. From the box with the handle on top he pulls out three wooden trays with circular impressions on them that are empty. It's a coin cabinet.

The book he has opened has a picture of a plate of many coins.

While Basil is questioning him, Dorian picks up coins from the tray and looks at each with a small magnifying glass and then looks through the plate of coins and once identified he sets it into a blank opening in the coin tray. This goes on for a good five minutes.

This was the first time that I had ever seen a display of a numismatic setting in a film. Has anyone else seen this film and noticed that particular scene?

The DVD is available for this film. It is the 1945 version. YouTube has clips of the movie but not of that particular scene.

To view the YouTube clip, see: The Picture of Dorian Gray 1945 (www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7bjLB5qQqU&feature=related)

Wayne Homren, Editor

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