Leave Her to Heaven - 1945 film review

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Now to an interesting old film. Leave Her to Heaven is a 1945 movie shot in 'glorious Technicolor', with primarily rural, charming locations, yet it's widely described as a film noir. A contradiction? I don't think so. For me, this is a film which is highly distinctive, yet which can sensibly be discussed alongside, and compared to, more conventional examples of film noir, shot in mean streets and rainy alleyways. After all, Body Heat, my favourite example of film noir (even though it was made in the 80s rather than the 40s or 50s), is a story that unfolds in bright sunshine amid blistering temperatures.

Jo Swerling's screenplay, based on Ben Ames Williams novel (the film rights of which were purchased prior to its publication in 1944, such was the quality of the characterisation), focuses more on people than plot, although there is a teasing preamble, with the arrival of Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde) at a lakeside in Maine, when we learn that he has just been released from prison. It would be a stretch to describe this story as a 'mystery', but it's undoubtedly a dark murder story.

Then it's flashback time. Richard is an author, who has the pleasurable experience of travelling on a train in which a beautiful woman is reading his latest novel. This is Ellen Berent, played by Gene Tierney, who had recently excelled in that great film noir Laura. One thing leads to another, as it so often does, and Richard and Ellen get married. She makes a friend of his younger brother Danny, whose ability to walk has been hampered by polio, and domestic bliss beckons.

The trouble is that Ellen's devotion to Richard is excessive, and her jealousy proves to be corrosive, with catastrophic results. I found Richard rather anodyne - I've never regarded Cornel Wilde as an exciting actor, I'm afraid - but Gene Tierney excels. She was nominated for an Oscar for best actress for her performance, and the accolade was well merited. There is some debate in academic circles as to whether she truly qualifies for the description femme fatale, but I don't have much doubt about it. What is interesting is that her motivation is not financial greed, as with Phyllis in Double Indemnity for instance. But in this film, Gene Tierney is, in her way, as menacing as the great Barbara Stanwyck. The supporting cast, by the way, also features good performances from Jeanne Crain, as Ellen's adopted sister, and Vincent Price, as a lawyer who was once engaged to Ellen.