Leave Her to Heaven
by John M. Stahl
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DVD details
Actor: Cornel Wilde, Gene Tierney, Jeanne Crain, Mary Philips, Vincent PriceDirector: John M. Stahl
Brand: TIERNEY,GENE
Cinematographer: Leon Shamroy
Editor: James B. Clark
Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck
Producer: William A. Bacher
Writer: Ben Ames Williams
Writer: Jo Swerling
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 110 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-02-22
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
DVD Reviews of Leave Her to Heaven
DVD Review: When Thrillers Weren't Bloody Messes
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great film, very stylish, showcasing a breathtakingly beautiful Gene Tierney, who is revealed to be unrepentantly evil.
DVD Review: Gene Tierney in the Row Boat Scene: Worth the price alone
Summary: 5 Stars
To see a perfectly coiffed Gene Tierny in a row boat, with her icy stare, watching her husbands brother drown is worth the price of the DVD alone. It's filled with gorgeous colors, beautiful people and high melodrama at it's best. I *highly* reccommend this movie.DVD Review: My favorite noir.
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw this as a child with my father. The lake scene spooked me then and is one of my most vivid movie memories to this day. Seeing it as an adult, I was able to appreciate the whole movie the same way.DVD Review: "I'll Never Let You Go"
Summary: 5 Stars
*SPOILER ALERT*
"Leave Her to Heaven" may be the quintessential story of jealousy and obsession. This film, which came out in 1946 and certainly daring for its time, tells the story of a beautiful woman, whose obsession and jealousy destroys everyone around her. I'm not sure if any other film on the subject matter has been done as well as this one.
The story centers around a woman who "loves" her husband, Richard Harland, so much, that she is willing to do anything and everything for him. However, she wants him all to herself. Not even the company of other family members is greeted with gratitude from the cold Ellen Berent. She sees everyone else as obstacles, and she desperately tries to find means of "eliminating" those people by whatever means. I still get chills during the scene in which Ellen sits in the boat and watches Danny, the brother of Richard, drown even when he cries to Ellen for help. This single scene really sets the tone for the rest of the film, for the audience now has a clear idea of how cold, calculating, and even diabolical, Ellen can be.
This movie simply cannot be mentioned without recognizing Gene Tierney in, arguably, her best performce of her career, which is saying something considering her vast body of work. But the character of Ellen Berent is the most complex character of the film, and Tierney expertly weaves the character from seemingly soft and loving, to vicious and brutal. This is not an easy task for an actor or actress to tackle. This isn't like Glenn Close's character from "Fatal Attraction." Ellen is much more subtle and calculating. Ellen believes all of her actions are justified by her "love" for Richard. She never realizes that she destroys their relationship by destroying everyone around Richard.
Cornel Wilde does a great job with the character of Richard Harland. He's a writer who meets Ellen aboard a train to the Jacinto, New Mexico. It's obvious that he's captivated by her right from the start, and he soon tries to spend as much time with her as possible. However, doubts quickly begin to seep in after Ellen coldly informs her former fiance, Russell Quinton (wonderfully played by Vincent Price), that she's marrying Richard. This is news to Richard since he had no idea about their upcoming marriage. One of the most effective scenes in the film is just after Ellen has berated her cousin, Ruth, for seemingly getting all of Richard's attention. Ellen is unaware of Richard standing there listening to her jealous tirade. Richard simply stands there and stares at Ellen, as if he's seeing her for the first time. The look is all that is needed, and it creates enough tension for the audience as Ellen quickly begins back-pedaling and trying to explain things to him.
Perhaps least recognized is Jeanne Crain as Ruth Berent. She isn't in the film much, and when she is, she's mostly in the background. And yet, Crain has to use as much time in her scenes to establish in a very subtle but effective way, that Ruth loves Richard. Ruth is softer but also more quiet. She's a woman who isn't interested in getting attention. She knows all about Ellen, and it is through Ruth and the looks on her face that we get a hint that something is terribly wrong about Ellen. Ruth conveys those feelings with small looks of concern. She knows that Richard is in trouble.
Perhaps more than any other film, "Leave Her to Heaven" most effectively demonstrates the destructive emotions of jealousy, and how they can affect all those around. Gene Tierney stated, "Jealousy is, I think, the worst of all faults because it makes a victim of both parties."
Nearly every master and saint have talked about love as being something that you have to give/to let go. It isn't something that can be held without giving it. Ellen's statement to Richard of "I'll never let you go" is actually a scary thing to hear, because it demonstrates that she doesn't feel love for Richard, but an obsession for his attention. Perhaps that is why we can agree with Richard in the end when he states, "Yes, Ellen was that kind of monster."
"Leave Her to Heaven" is a powerful film with tremendous acting performances all around. It addresses the issues of jealousy and obsession in a poignantly frightful way.
DVD Review: Lurid color and even more lurid story in a lush and strange noir
Summary: 4 Stars
It's not surprising that John Stahl, a director who made his name helming lush romantic weepies like MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION would direct one of the most romantic and over-the-top of all films noir. Despite being in color, LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN fits the noir paradigm in many ways - the flashback structure indicating that the seemingly upstanding young man who begins the story taking a boat to his house in the wilds of Maine has a dark, terrible past; the femme fatale whose seductive powers are the root of all the ills suffered by both our hero and most of the other significant characters in the film; the terrible prices paid by the innocent, and the reach of fate beyond the grave.
Ellen Berent (Gene Tierney) is the fatal femme in this tale, latching onto Cornel Wilde's somewhat na?ve writer Richard Harland when they meet by accident aboard train towards a New Mexico ranch where they are (also by chance) spending a vacation at the same time, he alone and she with her mother and sister. Except it's not entirely a vacation for the Harlands - they are scattering Ellen's father's ashes, and this plot point gives us several opportunities to note the powerful attachment that existed between the two - and that soon develops between Ellen and Richard, who bears a striking resemblance to the late Mr. Berent.
Amazingly soon, Ellen has given up on her ambitious attorney fianc? (Vincent Price) and thrown herself wholly over to the smitten Richard, demanding more and more from him as the film progresses, and her madness and jealousy deepen. To say much more would spoil the fun...this is truly one of the crazier madwoman melodramas from the period, with vivid work from Tierney and Jeanne Crain as her nicer, saner sister and stunning, riotously colorful Technicolor photography from Leon Shamroy. Price disappointingly doesn't get that many good scenes though he is suave and charming and reliable as ever when he is on screen. I was less impressed by Wilde, and the coda seems a bit protracted and obvious to me, but still a must-see for noirophiles or fans of romantic excess - after all, Douglas Sirk was soon to remake a couple of Stahl's earlier films, and he must have known this one quite well also.
Description of Leave Her to Heaven
Leave Her To Heaven is a stylish psychological thriller starring Gene Tierney as Ellen, the stunningly beautiful wife of handsome writer Richard Harland, played by Cornel Wilde. Ellen panics as her perfect marriage unravels and Harland's work and invalid brother demand more and more of his attention. Her husband becomes unnerved by her compulsive and jealous behavior. And when the people close to him are murdered, one by one, it is obvious that this dream marriage has become a full-fledged nightmare. Based on the best-selling novel by Ben Ames Williams. This film won the Oscar(r) for Best Cinematography (Color) and received three other Academy Award(r) nominations: Best Actress for Gene Tierney, Best Sound Recording, and Best Art Direction (Color)/Interior Decoration.Leave Her to Heaven is one of the most unblinkingly perverse movies ever offered up as a prestige picture by a major studio in the golden age of Hollywood. Gene Tierney, whose lambent eyes, porcelain features, and sweep of healthy-American-girl hair customarily made her a 20th Century Fox icon of purity, scored an Oscar nomination playing a demonically obsessive daughter of privilege with her own monstrous notion of love. By the time she crosses eyebeams with popular novelist Cornel Wilde on a New Mexico-bound train, her jealous manipulations have driven her parents apart and her father to his grave. Well, no, not grave: Wilde soon gets to watch her gallop a glorious palomino across a red-rock horizon as she metronomically sows Dad's ashes to the winds. Mere screen moments later, she's jettisoned rising-politico fianc? Vincent Price and accepted a marriage proposal the besotted/bewildered Wilde hasn't quite made. Can the wrecking of his and several other lives be far behind? Not to mention a murder or two.
Fox gave Ben Ames Williams's bestselling novel (probably just the sort of book Wilde's character writes) the Class-A treatment. Alfred Newman's tympani-heavy music score signals both grandeur and pervasive psychosis, while spectacular, dust-jacket-worthy locations and Oscar-destined Technicolor cinematography by Leon Shamroy ensure our fixed gaze. Impeccably directed by the veteran John M. Stahl (who'd made the original Back Street, Imitation of Life, and Magnificent Obsession a decade earlier), the result is at once cuckoo and hieratic, and weirdly mesmerizing. Bet Luis Bu?uel loved it. --Richard T. Jameson
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