Péché mortel

Like many post-war films, "Leave Her to Heaven" is a study of a troubled individual. Very troubled. This film was a great setup for Gene Tierney to go on and play the manipulative, selfish Isabel in "The Razor's Edge." She looked like a goddess and projected a certain austerity, both of which made her good for this type of role.

Tierney plays an obsessively possessive woman who lets nothing and no one get in the way of the object of her affections. In this case, it's Cornel Wilde, whose appeal has always been lost on me. Her mother and adoptive sister (Jeanne Crain) suspect that Ellen has a few problems but sublimate their feelings until they can't even look at her anymore. Ellen is still mourning the death of her father and apparently so dominated his attention that it destroyed his relationship with his wife. "Ellen loved him too much," her mother says. And how much did daddy love her, one wonders, thinking with a modern sensibility. And how exactly did he die? After captivating Wilde, Tierney sets to work making sure he never has a minute with anyone else...in any way necessary! The scene in the lake with her crippled brother-in-law is truly frightening.

Though Tierney, in my opinion, was one of the most beautiful women in films, she was never, ever more glorious looking than in this vibrantly photographed production. The most thrilling scene for me is when she scatters her father's ashes - though some may find the music a little strong, I thought it very powerful and atmospheric, particularly in that scene.

Believe it or not, "Leave Her to Heaven" was remade as a TV movie with Loni Anderson, which always prompts a friend of mine to say, when a film is mentioned, "Are you talking about the original or the Loni Anderson version?" There's only one version worth talking about, and it's this one.

No one can watch this without remembering Gene Tierney's searing blue eyes, Jeanne Crain's face of innocence, or Cornel Wilde (lightyears from The Naked Prey) here looking like a photo of Pierre & Gilles come to life. It's 110 minutes of color-time-travel basking in the surreally saturated Technicolor palette of the mid 40's.

For those who have been denied the experience of watching the recently restored version with a rapt audience on a big screen as happened April 26, 2008 at San Francisco's Castro Theatre, I can only hope you'll contact a film preservation-minded theater in your area.

Though I've watched this film on DVD, nothing prepared me for the impact of the big screen. The closeups alone will take your breath away.

Is it melodrama or is it noir?--leave that to Heaven!

The melodrama of which Stahl was one of the masters throughout the thirties had muted,probably because the importance of the film noir in the following decade."Leave her to heaven' is as much a film noir as a melodrama.What's particularly puzzling is the color. Like some Lang ,HItchcock or Tourneur works ("secret beyond the door" "spellbound" or "cat people",for instance) ,this is par excellence a Freudian movie.The heroine has never solved her Oedipus complex :she has always been in love with her father -dig the scene when Gene Tierney rides her horse as she throws her father's ashes away. The love she could not make with her father ,she will make it through a third party: a husband who resembles her dad. This could be fine.She loves her husband to the exclusion of all others .But there are others ,and they are all living threats.So these intruders will be enemies.The scene when Tierney sees her family coming through binoculars can be compared to an attack of Indians or bandits when the hero is alone in a remote fort in an adventure film ,as Bertrand Tavernier pointed out in "50 ans de cinéma américain". Had the heroine preserved her intimacy -and how stupid her husband was not to have understood that!-,maybe nothing would have happened.THe color,which might seem irrelevant in a film noir ,is actually necessary because "back of the moon" ,the island in the middle of the lake is a paradise ,soon to become a lost paradise,then a living hell. A probably never better Gene Tierney outshines every other member of the cast ,which is first-rate though.Little by little,we see her become a monster ,and the actress's performance is so convincing (along with a superb script from which a lot of today's writers could draw inspiration) that it gives her horrible crimes an implacable logic.Like in a Greek tragedy. "Leave her to heaven " is by no means "romantic trash" .It's the crowning of Stahl 's career in which he transcends both melodrama and film noir.

I don't think I agree with those who have designated 'Leave Her to Heaven (1945)' a film noir. This Technicolor picture – and it's surprising how much the presence of colour can distort the tone of a film – feels much closer to the claustrophobic domestic melodramas of the same period, such as Hitchcock's 'Rebecca (1940)' and 'Suspicion (1941),' and Cukor's 'Gaslight (1944).' But there's one important difference. By reversing the gender roles, and placing the power in the hands of the wife, director John M. Stahl here creates a formidable femme fatale, personified by the lovely and luminous Gene Tierney. The vibrant Technicolor photography is certainly pleasing to the eye, and the saturated colours add a perhaps-unintended touch of the surreal, but the dazzling colour palette distracts from and obstructs the film's darker themes. As much as I wouldn't like to deprive myself of Tierney's sparkling green eyes, I think that, in terms of atmosphere, 'Leave Her to Heaven' would have worked better in black-and-white.

The film starts off in the classic noir style: told in flashback, the story opens with popular author Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde), who meets an alluring woman, Ellen Berent (Tierney), on a train. Ellen quickly charms Richard with her dazzling looks and strong personality; soon, despite her own engagement to a prominent lawyer (Vincent Price), she has proposed their marriage, an offer he finds impossible to refuse. Here, 'Leave Her to Heaven' takes a distinct turn in storytelling approach, abruptly shifting its attention to Ellen's perspective, at which point we begin to recognise that perhaps she isn't as lovely as her new husband has been led to believe. The new couple move to Richard's secluded lakeside lodge, where they must also care for his crippled younger brother, Danny (Darryl Hickman, giving one of those "excited boy scout" child performances that were popular in the 1940s). As the weeks go by, Ellen's near-obsessive love for Richard begins to brood anger, hatred and jealousy, culminating in the cruelest of acts.

Tierney's character initially elicits an amount of sympathy, especially given Richard's apparent inability to recognise his wife's desperate need for privacy and intimacy in their relationship. However, it doesn't take long before her behaviour, fuelled by suspicion and paranoia, becomes entirely contemptible, and there's no longer any trace of the charming enchantress we saw in 'Laura (1944).' Ellen's psychosis is an intriguing one: she was obviously obsessed with love for her own father – what Freud called "feminine Oedipus attitude," or Electra complex – and, following his death, subsequently fell in love with Richard, who bears a remarkable resemblance to him. Such is her passion for her father, through Richard, that she cannot bear to share him with anybody; thus, her mania stems from the simple notion that "she loves too much." Ellen's murders are shocking in their own low-key simplicity, and Tierney, who received her only Oscar nomination for the role, carries out her evils with an icily-impassive face. But, geez, even this chilling portrayal can't make me stop loving her.

Beautiful Ellen Berent unashamedly jilts her fiancé, Russell Quinton, for writer Richard Harland. Her attraction to Harland being that he reminds her of her deceased father. But soon it becomes evident that Ellen is very possessive and literally will do what it takes to keep all away from her newly obtained beau.

Director John M. Stahl and writer Jo Swerling adapt from the novel written by Ben Ames Williams. Filmed in luscious Technicolor by Leon Shamroy (Oscar winning), Leave Her To Heaven proves two indisputable things. One is that to craft a searing film noir it doesn't have to be filmed in monochrome, the other is that it's proof positive that Gene Tierney (Ellen) was more than just a gorgeously effective face.

Tierney of course needs no introduction to fans of film noir, her appearance and quality of performance in the previous years release of Laura ensures that. While to a lesser degree the mixed Whirlpool four years later also cements her status in the corridors of darkness. But an argument can be made for this being her crowning glory, both in terms of her effervescent beauty and of the performance she gives (Oscar nominated). It's not outrageous to say that the film achieves greater heights because of her portrayal as Ellen, a character that is the epitome of the femme fatale. Tierney has this beguiling knack of shifting from charm personified to outright evil in a heart beat - and amazingly as Ellen grows more warped and jealous, Tierney grows ever more sexy. It's not just Cornel Wilde's duped Richard Harland falling into her disturbed web, it's any watching human being with a pulse! Even as the shockingly cold moments unravel, and there are some truly chilling ones for sure, Ellen draws us in with a lusty fascination that's rather unique.

Credit too must go to Stahl's direction, perhaps a director that unfairly sits in the lounge of the unsung, he weaves his story adroitly, setting up plot roads to keep us intrigued, only to then shift focus back on the dame holding court for characters and viewers alike. Wilde does fine, his mannered approach work works well off of Tierney's show stealing turn while in support we get pretty as a picture Jeanne Crain as the crucial sister character, Ruth Berent, while Vincent Price - elegant as always - does his profession proud in the small but important role of the jilted Quinton.

Leave Her To Heaven is a must for noir fans, a must for Tierney fans, and definitely a production to get the best out of your High Definition TV. 8.5/10