Sunday, November 17, 2019

DVD/150: LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN (John M. Stahl, 1945)

LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN is an under-appreciated psychological drama which earned Gene Tierney her only Oscar nomination.  Obsession never looked so lustrous...


Author Richard Harland meets Ellen Berendt on a train, unaware they are both guests at the same New Mexico ranch.  Ellen is going to disperse the ashes of her father to whom she was devoted and remarks how similar Richard is to him to her mother and adopted sister Ruth.


Richard is mesmerized by her and cannot say no when Ellen ditches her lawyer fiancee and proposes they get married.


Richard soon discovers that Ellen's obsessive love means nothing can come between them - she watches impassively as Richard's disabled brother drowns, induces a miscarriage when she realizes the baby will take Richard's love; but when Richard dedicates his latest book to Ruth, Ellen strikes..


Leon Shamoy's Oscar-winning cinematography makes this the most luminous Film Noir ever.

Shelf or charity shop?  This lives in the plastic storage box where all the bad girls are... solid support from Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain and Vincent Price are eclipsed by the ice-cold magnificence of Gene Tierney's Ellen, one of the great screen villainesses.



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