Leave Her to Heaven is a 1945 American psychological thriller drama film directed by John M. Stahl and starring Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, and Vincent Price. The story follows a socialite who marries a prominent novelist, which spurs a violent, obsessive, and dangerous jealousy in her. It is based on the 1944 novel of the same name by Ben Ames Williams, adapted by screenwriter Jo Swerling.

Shot in Technicolor, filming took place in several locations in California, as well as Arizona and New Mexico in the summer of 1945. Leave Her to Heaven was released in the United States theatrically on December 20, 1945. The film was a box-office hit, grossing over $8 million, and was Twentieth Century-Fox's highest-grossing film of the entire decade.

In the decades following its release, Leave Her to Heaven garnered a cult following and has been the subject of critical analysis for its unique blurring of genres including the psychological thriller, melodrama and film noir.

Plot

<!-- Per WP:FILMPLOT, plot summary should be between 400 to 700 words. -->

While traveling by train in New Mexico, novelist Richard Harland meets Ellen Berent, a beautiful socialite from Boston. She is particularly drawn to him, as he reminds her of her deceased father, to whom she had an obsessive attachment. Ellen is visiting New Mexico to spread her father's ashes, accompanied by her aloof mother and her cousin Ruth, who was adopted by Mrs. Berent (Richard is surprised when Ruth tells him this, and wonders why she did not say "Mr. and Mrs. Berent" adopted her).

Richard and Ellen discover they are staying with the same friends, and begin a whirlwind romance. He is fascinated by Ellen's exotic beauty and intense personality. The couple's affair is interrupted when Ellen's estranged fiancé, attorney Russell Quinton, arrives unexpectedly. Ellen then announces that she intends to marry Richard immediately, to Richard's surprise.

Ellen and Richard marry in Warm Springs, Georgia before staying at his lodge on a lake in northern Maine. Their domestic life is copacetic at first, but it becomes gradually apparent that she is pathologically jealous of anyone and anything he cares about, including his family and career.

During an unexpected visit from Ellen's family, her mother attempts to warn Richard that Ellen is prone to obsessiveness and a compulsion to "love too much". Ellen's resentment only grows when Richard's beloved teenage brother, Danny, crippled by polio, comes to live with them. One afternoon, Ellen follows him on the lake in a rowboat as he attempts to swim from one side to the other. She knowingly encourages him to press on, even as Danny begins to struggle to stay afloat. Ellen watches from the boat as he sinks below the surface and drowns.

thumb|left|upright=1|Gene Tierney and Jeanne Crain in Leave Her to Heaven

Danny's death is presumed an accident, and Ellen feigns sympathy. After settling at their home in Bar Harbor, Richard is despondent. At Ruth's suggestion, Ellen becomes pregnant in an attempt to please Richard, but later confesses to Ruth that she does not want the child, likening it to a "little beast".

One afternoon, Ellen throws herself down a staircase to induce a miscarriage. She succeeds, and after recovering in the hospital, accuses Ruth of being in love with Richard, citing a dedication in his new novel that alludes to her. Ruth rebukes Ellen by accusing her of causing the misery that has befallen the family. Richard overhears the argument, and confronts Ellen for the deaths of Danny and of their unborn child. Ellen admits without remorse to having let Danny drown, and cruelly tells Richard she would do it again if given the chance. Angered, Richard leaves Ellen, but does not pursue criminal action as he does not believe there is sufficient evidence.

An enraged Ellen sends a letter to Russell, who is now the county district attorney, in which she accuses Ruth of plotting to murder her. While on a picnic with Ruth and her mother several days later, Ellen secretly poisons herself with sugar laced with arsenic, which sends her into multiple organ failure over several days. When Richard visits Ellen on her deathbed, she requests in his confidence that she be cremated, and that he scatter her ashes where she spread her father's in New Mexico, which he agrees to do.

After Ellen dies, Ruth has her remains cremated at Richard's instruction. She is subsequently charged with Ellen's murder, the case prosecuted by Russell. During the trial, Russell proposes that Ruth plotted to kill Ellen so she and Richard could be together, and frames Ruth's cremation of Ellen as a calculated decision to prevent an autopsy.

A recalcitrant Richard testifies regarding Ellen's psychopathic jealousy, insisting that she made her own suicide appear as a murder to punish him and Ruth. Ruth is ultimately acquitted, but Richard is sentenced to two years imprisonment as an accessory in Danny's death, as he withheld his knowledge of Ellen's actions. After completing his sentence, Richard returns to his lodge, where he is welcomed lovingly by Ruth.

Cast

Analysis

Mythical allusions

The film features a number of allusions to classical Greek mythology, largely the protagonist, Ellen Berent's exhibition of an Electra complex, displaying an obsession with her deceased father. Critics who argue that the film is not a film noir note that Ellen does not seduce Richard into acting against his interests or breaking the law (in short, that she is not a femme fatale) (Walker).

Production

Development

In May 1944, Twentieth Century Fox executive Darryl F. Zanuck purchased the rights to Ben Ames Williams then-unpublished novel, Leave Her to Heaven, planning a screen adaptation. Instead, these scenes were filmed in Northern California at Bass Lake in the Sierra Nevada. It subsequently had its New York City premiere on Christmas Day 1945. Internationally, the film earned $2.7 million in rentals, making for a worldwide rental gross of $8.2 million.

Critical response

The staff at Variety gave the film a positive review, writing "[s]umptuous Technicolor mounting and a highly exploitable story lend considerable importance to Leave Her to Heaven that it might not have had otherwise...Tierney and Wilde use their personalities in interpreting their dramatic assignments. Crain's role of Tierney's foster-sister is more subdued but excellently done. Vincent Price, as the discarded lover, gives a theatrical reading to the courtroom scenes as the district attorney."

The New York Timess Bosley Crowther was less enthusiastic about the film, writing: "Christmas Day was an inauspicious moment to bring in a moody, morbid film which is all about a selfish, jealous and deceitful dame...&nbsp;The fact is, however, that this picture would be little more congenial at any time, for it is plainly a piece of cheap fiction done up in Technicolor and expensive sets." Writing in Time in 1946, critic James Agee stated, "The story's central idea might be plausible enough in a dramatically lighted black-and-white picture or in a radio show with plenty of organ background. But in the rich glare of Technicolor, all its rental-library characteristics are doubly glaring. Leave Her's heroine is jealous Ellen (Gene Tierney), whose somewhat too-intense love for her husband (Cornel Wilde) leads her to drown his brother, throw herself downstairs, and eventually poison her own coffee... It is a story of in-law trouble carried to awful extremes. But it is hard to work up any sustained sympathy for the upright characters. Audiences will probably side with the murderess... "

The film was cited by director Martin Scorsese as one of his favorite films and assessed "Gene Tierney is one of the most underrated actresses of the Golden Era."

Rotten Tomatoes reported that 85% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on 65 reviews. The consensus summarizes: "Leave Her to Heaven suffers from a surfeit of unlikable characters, but the solid cast – led by an outstanding Gene Tierney – makes it hard to turn away."

In the decades after its release, the film garnered a cult following. Critic Emanuel Levy attributes its cult status to its blurring of genres, ultimately resulting in a "one of a kind work."

Accolades

{| class="wikitable unsortable plainrowheaders" style="width:75%;"

|-

! style="width:20%;"| Award/association

! style="width:1%;"| Year

! style="width:29%;"| Category

! style="width:53%;"| Recipient(s)

! style="width:5%;"| Result

! style="width:1%;" |

|-

! scope="row" rowspan="4"| Academy Awards

| rowspan="4"| 1946

| Best Actress

| Gene Tierney

|

| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="5"|

|-

| Best Art Direction (Color)

|

|

|-

| Best Cinematography (Color)

| Leon Shamroy

|

|-

| Best Sound Recording

| Thomas T. Moulton

|

|-

! scope="row"| Venice Film Festival

| 1946

| Grand International Award

| John M. Stahl

|

|}

Home media

In 2013, the independent home media distributor Twilight Time released a limited edition Blu-ray release of the film. A new DVD and Blu-ray release was issued on March 24, 2020, by The Criterion Collection.

Adaptation

  • Too Good to Be True (1988 television version).
  • The character Courtney Shayne in the 1999 film Jawbreaker is in part based on Ellen.

Portions of the film are seen in the M*A*S*H season three episode "House Arrest", particularly the scene in which Tierney and Wilde share a passionate kiss, which causes Hawkeye to quip, "If he straightens out that overbite, I'll kill him." The episode originally aired February 4, 1975. Author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni mentions this film in her novel Independence (2022).

The movie appears as a collectable film canister in the 2011 video game L.A. Noire.

See also

  • Mental illness in film
  • List of films featuring psychopaths and sociopaths

References

Sources

  • at 45th New York Film Festival
  • Leave Her to Heaven: The Eyes of Ellen Berent an essay by Megan Abbott at the Criterion Collection
  • Leave Her to Heaven on Lux Radio Theater: March 17, 1947