LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN (Stahl, 1945)
Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date Mar 24, 2020
Review by Christopher S. Long
The genres of melodrama and noir share
only a short border, but both intersect in the enigmatic and magnetic
blue-green eyes of actress Gene Tierney, star of director John M.
Stahl's “Leave Her To Heaven” (1945).
Ellen Berent (Tierney) and Richard
Harland (Cornel Wilde) size each other up on a train. Richard coyly
steals glances while Ellen gazes with increasing boldness and evident
hunger. The meet-cute turns meet-sinister when Ellen explains the
fascination this stranger on a train holds for her: “You look so
much like my father.” Yikes!
Perhaps a bright, successful novelist
like Richard should take this was a warning to switch cars while he
still can, but the problem is that Ellen looks so much like Gene
Tierney. He was doomed the instant he spiraled into the gravity well
of those inescapable eyes. Next thing Richard knows, they're married,
even if he can't quite remember the proposal. Ellen has a way of
getting what she wants, and she wants Richard. All to herself.
Stahl makes Tierney's uncanny beauty
the centerpiece of the film, and not just by asking screenwriter Jo
Swerling (adapting the best-selling novel by Ben Ames Williams) to
devise excuses for the actress to slip into a diverse array of
sweaters, bathing suits, and nightgowns. Tierney's flawless face
matches the flawless décor of the palatial Berent estate, and her
ruby-red lipstick, positively bleeding in lush Technicolor, shines as
luminously as the sun that glistens off the pools and lakes featured
in the film.
To the degree that “Leave Her To
Heaven” qualifies as a noir, it is the rare noir that doesn't rely
heavily on shadows and murky spaces. The lustrous colors and the
sheer brightness of the set design threaten to envelop Richard as
surely as the gloomiest of noir alleyways, and so does the ugliness
lurking just beneath his perfect housewife's perfect visage. She
won't let anything get in the way of their wedded bliss, not her
family, not their baby, not even Richard's polio-stricken little
brother (Darryl Hickman). Richard is warned that “Ellen always
wins” but fortunately he's not in a full-fledged noir, so fate
still permits him a potential escape route, primarily in the form of
Ellen's true-hearted cousin Ruth (Jeanne Crain).
Ellen's beauty blinds Richard to her
flaws and Tierney's beauty can blind viewers to the quality of her
performance. She renders Ellen both as supremely domineering and also
vulnerable as a woman who only “loves too much”, at least
according to her mother (Mary Philips). And though Tierney relishes
in some of the overwrought flourishes of the traditional melodrama (a
spiteful trip down a flight of stairs among them) she creates one of
the most soul-chilling scenes of 1940's Hollywood simply by sitting
still and staring passively through a pair of dark sunglasses.
“Leave Her To Heaven” ends on its
weakest note with an extended and tedious courtroom scene which at
least gives Vincent Price something to do after only the briefest of
cameos earlier on. But Tierney's performance is indelible and
cinematographer Leon Shamroy, who netted the film's sole Oscar win,
deftly paints peril into every frame of this glowing Technicolor
dreamland turned nightmare.
Video:
The film is presented in its original
1.37:1 aspect ratio. From Criterion: “This 2K digital restoration
was undertaken by Twentieth Century Fox and the Academy Film Archive,
with support from The Film Foundation. A new digital transfer was
created from a 35 mm color reversal internegative. A 35 mm nitrate
Technicolor print was used as a reference for picture restoration.”
Without the original Technicolor
footage, we can't be certain how precisely the colors match the
original release, but with the reference print, this 1080 restoration
provides a robust, bright image bursting with color. I couldn't spot
any obvious flaws in the presentation.
Audio:
The LPCM mono track is cleanly mixed
with no evident dropoffs. The swelling original score by Alfred
Newman is well-preserved. Optional English subtitles support the
English dialogue.
Extras:
Criterion has gone light with the
features this time, including only a Trailer (2 min.) and a new
interview (26 min.) with critic Imogen Sara Smith, the author of “In
Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond The City.” Smith touches on the
mysterious early life of director John M. Stahl, who long claimed to
be born in New York but was, in fact, born in Azerbaijan. She also
provides some visual analysis of a few scenes in the film.
The slim fold-out booklet features an
incisive essay by novelist Megan Abbott.
Final Thoughts:
Gene Tierney was at her career peak,
following up “Laura” (1944) with a role of a lifetime as Ellen in
this film. Criterion offers little in the way of extras this time,
though the interview with Smith is very strong, but this is a solid
high-definition presentation of this strange melodrama-noir.
