Leave Her to Heaven [DVD] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

Movie: ***** DVD Transfer: ***** Extras: *****

20th Century-Fox's highest-grossing film of the 1940's showcases exquisite leading lady Gene Tierney in a mesmerizing, Oscar-nominated performance as a femme fatale whose placid beauty masks a murderously possessive heart. Based on the best-selling novel by Ben Ames Williams, the astonishingly perverse screenplay by Jo Swerling touches on such then-taboo (and still-shocking) subjects as incestuous obsession, the victimization of the disabled, self-induced abortion, and suicide disguised as homicide! Pretty potent stuff for its time, and it's all presented in lush candy-box Technicolor by Oscar-winner Leon Shamroy, whose masterful cinematography skillfully emphasizes a central theme of the film: that a beautiful surface can sometimes hide a thoroughly rotten core.

By design and through her acting skills, Miss Tierney's tour de force performance dominates the film; she especially shines in two challenging sequences, one involving a rowboat and another which takes place on a staircase. Among the supporting cast, solid work is turned in by Cornel Wilde as the object of Tierney's intensity; Jeanne Crain as her sweet-natured cousin and adopted sister; and Mary Philips as her alienated mother; but it is Vincent Price who stands out in a bravura performance as Tierney's former suitor. Price's character takes center stage throughout the final twenty minutes of the movie, and he plays some very long and difficult scenes with aplomb.

Fox Home Video's DVD presentation of this classic drama is truly impeccable, featuring a gorgeous, digitally restored print and remastered soundtrack. I've seen this movie dozens times over the past thirty years - in theatres, on video, and on cable - and it's never looked or sounded so magnificent. The bonus features include the film's 1952 Theatrical Re-release Trailer; Fox Movietone News segments featuring footage of the film's Los Angeles premiere and the 1945 Academy Awards; a fascinating stills gallery featuring photos taken during the film's location shooting at Bass Lake; and a restoration comparison demonstrating how the film was remastered for DVD. The disc also features an audio commentary by film critic Richard Schickel, who clearly was unprepared for the job: he refers to Price's character by the wrong name; mistakenly identifies two child players as boys (one, played by Betty Hannon, is obviously a girl); and vacillates back and forth in his opinions regarding the film's qualities. Additional commentary is also offered by actor Darryl Hickman, who played Cornel Wilde's brother in the film. Hickman clearly loathed making the movie, and snipes ungraciously about Tierney as an actress and as a human being, ignoring the fact that she was struggling with the devastating prospect of institutionalizing her mentally enfeebled 18-month-old daughter during the course of the film's production. Hickman also takes potshots at Jeanne Crain (appearing in her fifth film role of any size), director John M. Stahl, and the personality of cameraman Leon Shamroy (although he is clearly an admirer of the latter's work). The sour and ineffective commentary aside, the DVD presentation of "Leave Her to Heaven" is a superb example of 1940's Hollywood moviemaking and the DVD format at their very best, and is most highly recommended for your viewing pleasure.

Gene Tierney, with her beautiful cheekbones, creamy skin, icy blue eyes, delicious overbite, and chestnut hair, was a vision of loveliness-one of the great beauties of the screen. She was also an underrated actress, who played "good" girls in films such as "Heaven Can Wait", "Laura", "The Ghost and Mrs Muir", and "Dragonwyck",and bitches in films such as "The Razor's Edge", "The Egyptian", and, of course, "Leave Her to Heaven" a technicolor "film noir". In this, her Oscar-nominated role, she plays Ellen Berent, a woman whose insane jealousy and possessiveness causes misery and death to those around her. She sets her eyes on writer Richard Harland, (Cornel Wilde) who reminds her of her late father. Ellen had an unusual, almost incestuous relationship with her father-one even suspects that she drove him to his death. Having jilted her district attorney fiancee Russell Quentin, played by Vincent Price, she sets out to hook Harland. It seems that Ellen doesn't want to share her husband's affections with anyone, including his crippled kid brother, whom she lets drown when he attempts to swim across a lake, and her unborn child, when she deliberately throws herself down a flight of stairs to induce a miscarriage. When Ellen's jealousy of her sister's relationship and budding affection for her husband, along with his discovery of the truth of his brother's and unborn child's deaths force him to leave her in disgust, she plots the ultimate act of vindictiveness-she fatally poisons herself, and sends a letter implicating her sister and husband to her ex-fiancee Quentin. This doll didn't play! Miss Tierney, who had suffered a nervous breakdown in the 1950s after a series of unfortunate incidents in her personal life, wrote in her book "Self Portrait", that the character she played in this film was insane-and that she tried very hard,and convincingly, to make others think that she was not. Miss Tierney's performance is very believable, restrained, and positively chilling. The Technicolor photography, while beautiful, has a certain "chilliness" which actually heightens the film's drama-a rather unusual twist, as this type of fare was usually filmed in black and white. Add to this a powerful, chilling score by Alfred Newman, good performances by Wilde, Price, the lovely Jeanne Crain, and Darryl Hickman, and you have an entertaining, slickly produced melodrama. Yes, jealousy is one of the seven deadly sins-and in this film, it is "deadlier than the male"!

The real star of this fascinating little movie is the breath-taking Technicolor photography of Maine and New Mexico; even the architecture is great to look at (as is the gorgeous Gene Tierney!). Tierney's role of Ellen Berent has received almost cult status over the years since her character is that of an obsessive and cruel, selfish and evil woman; her relationship with Cornel Wilde indeed makes for an unusual and strange love story! Ben Ames William's novel of the same name was released in 1944 and was read by over a million people; the public was obviously captivated by this lurid little tale of a psychopathic wife. While being more than a little melodramatic, the story's believability is quite implausible at times, however the film lingers in the psyche nevertheless (the scene where Ellen lets Wilde's crippled little brother Hickman drown out of sheer jealousy is genuinely disturbing). Classic line: Ellen's mother: "There's nothing wrong with Ellen. She just loves too much!" Rarely has such a wicked woman looked as beautiful as Tierney does in this unusual story of obsessive "love".