My 2024 Watchlist Obsession!

I'm a huge fan of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. Everything about it - the experimental visuals, the folk music, the customs of the village, the frenetic camerawork - it's all amazing. Speaking of which, I still need to revisit The Color of Pomegranates.

The first thing I did when considering Leave Her to Heaven was pick up Danny Peary's book Alternate Oscars, because I thought Gene Tierney really had a chance of nabbing his pick for 1945. Alas it wasn't to be - but nevertheless, this was one of the more interesting turns I've seen considering that her character in this, Ellen Berent, isn't some batty madwoman running around with wild ideas in her head. She's just really intense, and in the end her jealousy has her commit a few crimes that earns her 'monster' status. For that, her startling icy blue eyes might be one of the reasons this film simply had to be shot in Technicolor (so interesting that during her big murder scene she's wearing sunglasses - the only time in the film she appears to be dead cold.) Ellen's sister, Ruth (Jeanne Crain), describes her as someone who "loves too much" (a polite way of calling someone a bunny boiler these days), and while there's no excuse for murder and the other crimes she commits, the film often sets events up in a manner where she does have genuine reasons to feel hurt and aggrieved. Leave Her to Heaven has a real complexity to it.

Ellen falls in love with Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde) when they 'meet cute' during a train journey. She happens to be reading one of his novels, and his remarkable resemblance to her father gets us off to an early start understanding that her obsessiveness was once directed at this paternal figure. We see her scatter his ashes in one scene, looking like a figure from Greek mythology on her steed - urn placed at her side. I've heard that there are many references to that kind of folklore in Leave Her to Heaven - one thing I don't think I'd have figured out on my own is the fact that this is considered film noir. I won't even get started on the many differences this has with your typical noir outing. The colour is dazzling - I love the old Technicolor films, and the vibrant way yellows and reds glow with such soft intensity. Whatever reasons there are for calling this noir - it's not how the movie looks that swings it. (The film won a Best Color Cinematography Oscar for Leon Shamroy, and although the art direction is worthy of making a special note of, it was only nominated in that category, Frenchman's Creek taking away the prize there.) I think the movie is stunning in a visual sense.

Adding to the film in my eyes is the fact that a little bit of courtroom drama is added to the mix - and here the prosecuting attorney is Ellen's former fiancé Russell Quinton (Vincent Price). I like Vincent Price, so that kind of doubles the enjoyment - even if he's a little shrill when pushing points home while questioning his witnesses. I'll forget him, and Wilde, and Crain eventually however - this is Tierney's film performance-wise, and a high point for veteran director John M. Stahl. My expectations were that Tierney's character would be more unhinged, and disconnected from reality - but the truth is that a sociopath needn't be someone who shows outward signs of being mentally unwell. Sometimes a sociopath also has grievances which are genuine, and sometimes they are hard done by. It doesn't excuse what they do, and it doesn't mean they're any less monstrous - but sometimes you need to acknowledge everyone's actions. In the end though, whenever I think of Leave Her to Heaven, I'll immediately think of that one scene were Tierney sits in her boat on the lake with those sunglasses on - cold, calculating, murderous, jealous, conniving and intense. By the end we're dead against Ellen, but when I look back at this movie as a whole, there's a sadness to her, and I do feel some sympathy for the monster here.

Glad to catch this one - Criterion #1020. Twentieth Century-Fox's highest-grossing film of the decade. Nominated for the Grand International Award at the Venice Film Festival.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Leave Her to Heaven.

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