Leave Her to Heaven (1945)

Movie: ***** DVD Transfer: ***** Extras: *****

20th Century-Fox's highest-grossing film of the 1940's showcases exquisite leading lady Gene Tierney in a mesmerizing, Oscar-nominated performance as a femme fatale whose placid beauty masks a murderously possessive heart. Based on the best-selling novel by Ben Ames Williams, the astonishingly perverse screenplay by Jo Swerling touches on such then-taboo (and still-shocking) subjects as incestuous obsession, the victimization of the disabled, self-induced abortion, and suicide disguised as homicide! Pretty potent stuff for its time, and it's all presented in lush candy-box Technicolor by Oscar-winner Leon Shamroy, whose masterful cinematography skillfully emphasizes a central theme of the film: that a beautiful surface can sometimes hide a thoroughly rotten core.

By design and through her acting skills, Miss Tierney's tour de force performance dominates the film; she especially shines in two challenging sequences, one involving a rowboat and another which takes place on a staircase. Among the supporting cast, solid work is turned in by Cornel Wilde as the object of Tierney's intensity; Jeanne Crain as her sweet-natured cousin and adopted sister; and Mary Philips as her alienated mother; but it is Vincent Price who stands out in a bravura performance as Tierney's former suitor. Price's character takes center stage throughout the final twenty minutes of the movie, and he plays some very long and difficult scenes with aplomb.

Fox Home Video's DVD presentation of this classic drama is truly impeccable, featuring a gorgeous, digitally restored print and remastered soundtrack. I've seen this movie dozens times over the past thirty years in theatres, on video, and on cable and it's never looked or sounded so magnificent. The bonus features include the film's 1952 Theatrical Re-release Trailer; Fox Movietone News segments featuring footage of the film's Los Angeles premiere and the 1945 Academy Awards; a fascinating stills gallery featuring photos taken during the film's location shooting at Bass Lake; and a restoration comparison demonstrating how the film was remastered for DVD. The disc also features an audio commentary by film critic Richard Schickel, who clearly was unprepared for the job: he refers to Price's character by the wrong name; mistakenly identifies two child players as boys (one, played by Betty Hannon, is obviously a girl); and vacillates back and forth in his opinions regarding the film's qualities. Additional commentary is also offered by actor Darryl Hickman, who played Cornel Wilde's brother in the film. Hickman clearly loathed making the movie, and snipes ungraciously about Tierney as an actress and as a human being, ignoring the fact that she was struggling with the devastating prospect of institutionalizing her mentally enfeebled 18-month-old daughter during the course of the film's production. Hickman also takes potshots at Jeanne Crain (appearing in her fifth film role of any size), director John M. Stahl, and the personality of cameraman Leon Shamroy (although he is clearly an admirer of the latter's work). The sour and ineffective commentary aside, the DVD presentation of "Leave Her to Heaven" is a superb example of 1940's Hollywood moviemaking and the DVD format at their very best, and is most highly recommended for your viewing pleasure.

Gene Tierney, with her beautiful cheekbones, creamy skin, icy blue eyes, delicious overbite, and chestnut hair, was a vision of loveliness-one of the great beauties of the screen. She was also an underrated actress, who played "good" girls in films such as "Heaven Can Wait", "Laura", "The Ghost and Mrs Muir", and "Dragonwyck",and bitches in films such as "The Razor's Edge", "The Egyptian", and, of course, "Leave Her to Heaven" a technicolor "film noir". In this, her Oscar-nominated role, she plays Ellen Berent, a woman whose insane jealousy and possessiveness causes misery and death to those around her. She sets her eyes on writer Richard Harland, (Cornel Wilde) who reminds her of her late father. Ellen had an unusual, almost incestuous relationship with her father-one even suspects that she drove him to his death. Having jilted her district attorney fiancee Russell Quentin, played by Vincent Price, she sets out to hook Harland. It seems that Ellen doesn't want to share her husband's affections with anyone, including his crippled kid brother, whom she lets drown when he attempts to swim across a lake, and her unborn child, when she deliberately throws herself down a flight of stairs to induce a miscarriage. When Ellen's jealousy of her sister's relationship and budding affection for her husband, along with his discovery of the truth of his brother's and unborn child's deaths force him to leave her in disgust, she plots the ultimate act of vindictiveness-she fatally poisons herself, and sends a letter implicating her sister and husband to her ex-fiancee Quentin. This doll didn't play! Miss Tierney, who had suffered a nervous breakdown in the 1950s after a series of unfortunate incidents in her personal life, wrote in her book "Self Portrait", that the character she played in this film was insane-and that she tried very hard,and convincingly, to make others think that she was not. Miss Tierney's performance is very believable, restrained, and positively chilling. The Technicolor photography, while beautiful, has a certain "chilliness" which actually heightens the film's drama-a rather unusual twist, as this type of fare was usually filmed in black and white. Add to this a powerful, chilling score by Alfred Newman, good performances by Wilde, Price, the lovely Jeanne Crain, and Darryl Hickman, and you have an entertaining, slickly produced melodrama. Yes, jealousy is one of the seven deadly sins-and in this film, it is "deadlier than the male"!

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The real star of this fascinating little movie is the breath-taking Technicolor photography of Maine and New Mexico; even the architecture is great to look at (as is the gorgeous Gene Tierney!). Tierney's role of Ellen Berent has received almost cult status over the years since her character is that of an obsessive and cruel, selfish and evil woman; her relationship with Cornel Wilde indeed makes for an unusual and strange love story! Ben Ames William's novel of the same name was released in 1944 and was read by over a million people; the public was obviously captivated by this lurid little tale of a psychopathic wife. While being more than a little melodramatic, the story's believability is quite implausible at times, however the film lingers in the psyche nevertheless (the scene where Ellen lets Wilde's crippled little brother Hickman drown out of sheer jealousy is genuinely disturbing). Classic line: Ellen's mother: "There's nothing wrong with Ellen. She just loves too much!" Rarely has such a wicked woman looked as beautiful as Tierney does in this unusual story of obsessive "love".

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Called trashy melodrama by some critics, "Leave Her to Heaven," the story of a demented woman and the husband who becomes trapped in her web of possession, insanity, and murder, is trash at its zenith, a prime example of 1940s studio opulence. This film noir, told in extended flashback as the husband returns home from an unjust prison term, is unusual in that it is in vibrant Technicolor rather than the genre's usual black-and-white. But the contrast between visual brilliance and psychosis enhances the horror. In her autobiography, Gene Tierney wrote that she had wanted to play Ellen Berent ever since she read Ben Ames Williams's novel. She worked well with John Stahl, and "blossomed under his direction." Besides the sets at Twentieth Century-Fox, filming was done on location in Arizona, northern California, and Georgia. The real star of the film may be Leon Shamroy's Technicolor cinematography, which earned the picture its only Academy Award and is still beautiful more than sixty years later.

The recent Fox Studio Classics DVD release of "Leave Her to Heaven" contains an excellent transfer of the restored film, relevant contemporary newsreels, a restoration comparison, and commentary by supporting actor Darryl Hickman and critic Richard Schickel. Both Hickman and Schickel offer interesting insights, but each is sometimes condescending toward the acting talents of Tierney, Cornel Wilde, and particularly Jeanne Crain. Inexplicably and inexcusably, Schickel repeatedly pronounces director Stahl's name "Sphal."

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I have enjoyed this film for years and was very eager to have it come out on dvd. A smashing little thriller and a fine portrait of a woman who is a complete sociopath. Imagine my suprise that in all the world, Fox couldn't find two people who actually like the film to do the commentary track! Most of the track is taken up by the non-stop whinings of Darryl Hickman, the then teen aged actor who played Danny. He is currently a drama teacher who has discovered (I kid you not) "the definitive acting style for the new millenium", about which he is writing a book. And apparently everyone comes up short against his high standards. Gene Tierney was a lovely, troubled, cold stand-offish society woman of no discernible talent who telegraphs her technique. Both Cornel Wilde and Jeanne Crain were lovely people of limited abilities. Chill Wills was a personality and not an actor at all. The actress who plays Gene and Jeanne's mother was a stage actress and far too mannered and "internal" (?), not "in the moment". Only Vincent Price escapes his wrath, and even then he unfavorably compares his looks to Cornell Wilde's. The director treated him abominably, constantly referring to him as, gasp, "son". In fact, he doesn't think there should be child actors at all since it's so abusive. It seems this guy thinks every bit of film acting prior to "the method" was irredeemable garbage and the only admirable thing about the film is the cinematography. The film obviously interrupted his high times with Liz and Roddy and Shirley and other heavily dropped names of the period. Sad sad bitter man. You and Jay North need to form a club. I hope you are enjoying putting your impeccable technique to work in the many fine community theatre productions that you feel superior while doing.

Richard Schickel is better if repetitive with his discussion of Women's pictures other than the one he's reviewing. He too does not seem overly enamored of the actors or their performances. But, Oh, that cinematography!

They should've let Scorsese do the track! He would've had some superlatives.