Leave Her to Heaven

Leave Her to Heaven
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John M. Stahl
Produced by	William A. Bacher
Screenplay by	Jo Swerling
Story by	Ben Ames Williams
Starring	Gene Tierney Cornel Wilde Jeanne Crain Vincent Price
Music by	Alfred Newman
Cinematography	Leon Shamroy
Editing by	James B. Clark
Distributed by	Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Release date(s)	December 19, 1945 (1945-12-19) (United States)
Running time	110 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Leave Her to Heaven is a 1945 American 20th Century Fox Technicolor motion picture starring Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, with Vincent Price, Darryl Hickman, Ray Collins, and Chill Wills. The story revolves around a femme fatale who entraps a husband and commits several crimes motivated by her insane jealousy over everything concerning him.

The story was adapted for the screen by Jo Swerling from the best selling novel of the same name by Ben Ames Williams and directed by John M. Stahl. Tierney received an Oscar nomination as Best Actress. The film grossed over $5,000,000, Fox's highest-grossing picture of the 1940s.

The film's title is drawn from William Shakespeare's Hamlet. In Act I, Scene V, the Ghost urges Hamlet not to seek vengeance against Queen Gertrude, but rather to "leave her to heaven, and to those thorns that in her bosom lodge to prick and sting her."

Plot

The film begins with novelist Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde) returning to his remote island home Back of the Moon after two years in prison. His approach there dissolves to an extended flashback running almost the entire duration of the film narrated by Harland's friend and attorney (Ray Collins). Through him we see how Richard meets beautiful socialite Ellen Berent (Gene Tierney) on a train. She falls in love with him based mainly on his close resemblance to her recently deceased father, to whom she was obsessively attached.

Ellen is already engaged to an ambitious Boston attorney (Vincent Price), but she jilts him and rapidly marries Richard, who at first is fascinated not only with Ellen's beauty but her exotic and intense manner. It gradually becomes apparent however that Ellen is pathologically jealous towards any other person and activity that her husband cares about.

Two tragedies occur: the drowning of Richard's younger disabled brother, whom he dearly loved, and the miscarriage of the couple's unborn son when Ellen trips down a flight of stairs. Richard starts to suspect that Ellen is directly responsible for both deaths. When Ellen confesses what she did and why, he leaves her. She then decides to poison herself, coldly framing her sweet adoptive sister Ruth (Jeanne Crain) in jealousy over Ruth's warm but innocent friendship with her husband.

Posing as a victim, Ellen writes to her ex-fiance (since elected a county district attorney) laying out her claims of murder. She expires hand-in-hand with Richard, who is next seen being grilled by Price as the prosecutor for Ruth's trial. Ruth is then pressured by Price into admitting she has always loved Richard. In response, the previous recalcitrant Richard resumes the witness chair and testifies about Ellen's insane jealousy and her dual confessions to him. Ruth is acquitted, but Richard receives two years in prison as an accessory to his brother's death for withholding knowledge of Ellen's actions from investigators.

The flashback ends with Richard being welcomed home to Back of the Moon by a loving embrace from Ruth.

Cast

• Gene Tierney as Ellen Berent Harland
• Cornel Wilde as Richard Harland
• Jeanne Crain as Ruth Berent
• Vincent Price as Russell Quinton
• Mary Philips as Mrs. Berent
• Ray Collins as Glen Robie
• Gene Lockhart as Dr. Saunders
• Reed Hadley as Dr. Mason
• Darryl Hickman as Danny Harland
• Chill Wills as Leick Thome

Reception

Cornel Wilde and Gene Tierney in a scene from the film

Critical response

The staff at Variety magazine gave the film a positive review, writing, "Sumptuous 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."

More recently, Lou Lumenick, film critic for the New York Post, wrote, "John M. Stahl's masterful Leave Her to Heaven (1945) sounds like a contradiction in terms – a film noir in eye-popping Technicolor, with its most chilling scene taking place not in a dimly lit back alley but on a lake in Maine. But make no mistake – the gorgeous Gene Tierney's homicidally jealous Ellen Berent is the fatalest of femmes in this gorgeously restored classic, beginning a one-week run at Film Forum today." It was cited by acclaimed director Martin Scorsese as one of his favorite films of all time and assessed Gene Tierney as one of the most underrated actresses of the Golden Era.

The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 100% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on eighteen reviews.

Academy of Motion Pictures Awards

Wins

• Academy Award: Oscar, Best Cinematography -- Color, Leon Shamroy ; 1946

Nominations

• Best Actress in a Leading Role, Gene Tierney.
• Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color, Lyle R. Wheeler, Maurice Ransford, and Thomas Little.
• Best Sound, Recording, Thomas T. Moulton (20th Century-Fox SSD); 1946.

Adaptation

• Too Good to Be True (1988 television version).

See also

• Mental illness in film

External links

• Leave Her to Heaven at the Internet Movie Database
• Leave Her to Heaven at the TCM Movie Database
• Leave Her to Heaven film trailer at Reelz Channel
• Martin Scorsese discusses Leave Her to Heaven at 45th New York Film Festival
• Leave Her to Heaven on Lux Radio Theater: March 17, 1947