Leave Her to Heaven

Gene Tierney makes me swoon, and she's perfect for this type of role, having the ability to be beautiful and menacing simultaneously. At times it feels hokey and the technicolor doesn't always mesh well with the atmosphere but the suspense part of the film builds very well making the film ultimately successful. It'd work a bit better without the bit at the beginning framing it as a flashback.

Gone Girl but in 1945. It is always fun to watch an actress just completely destroy the role as the evil woman. Just a ton of fun. Vincent Price without a moustache is a different man.

It's a woman's picture dripping in glorious technicolor--only this time the woman isn't the usual insecure neurotic or narcissist, given to suffering or self-dramatizing: she's a stone-cold sociopath and a murderer. Gene Tierney has never been lovelier--or so thoroughly evil. Stahl directs with absolute classical sincerity--no baroque campiness here--and this adds much to the film's power and effect.

This definitely needs a couple of viewings to get the most out of Ellen's early suggestions and insinuations. It's actually a lot better when you know what's going to happen; it allows you to better appreciate Tierney's superb performance. On one hand it could be seen as a brilliant psych' thriller, and on the other (much more accurate hand) it could be seen as an hour of dross followed by an hour of suspense. I was lucky enough to see it in two parts.

Kind of a letdown since the Criterion cover looks so awesome with Gene Tierney in sunglasses. The transfer wasn't that great either, maybe due to the early Technicolor. There was a lot of traveling but the different locations are showcased well. I would love to stay at any one of the properties. Vincent Price puts in a powerful performance but the courtroom procedural is ridiculous. Jail sentence doesn't make sense. Fav scene: I love the family's New Mexico home.

Leave Her to Heaven is decent and has a good performance by Gene Tierney, but I think I expected more. The film could have been paced better, and the ending courthouse scenes are kind of ridiculous.

Very, very weak. Slow, dull, boring, plot so empty it echoes.

"A fevered yet clinical study of jealousy, Leave Her to Heaven is probably John M. Stahl's best-known film." - Dan Callahan

Fabulous woman's film of he 1940's. Great contrast between the visible tecnicolor and the darkness of the story. May seem a bit over the top now but I love it.

Marvelous psychodrama, something like a noir Douglas Sirk. One usually doesn't think of color films as noir, especially such gorgeous Technicolor, but the atmosphere is so grim and twisted that it fits. The lake scene is one of the most chilling that I've ever witnessed. Tierney does some of her best work, starting off as a seemingly harmless romantic lead and transforming into a wicked, demented femme fatale. If the film has a major flaw, it's the slow beginning.

Wow--Madame Bovary with a vengeance. The second half proved a lot more absorbing. Goofy touches (Cornel recites to Gene words from the book she's reading; she doesn't realize he wrote it till she notices the back-cover pic; Cornel is spooked because Gene knows so much about him, before he realizes she's read his bio blurb...just how bright is this guy anyway?). At times it looks like something from the 70s--low-key and casual; I think of the airport scenelet in particular.

Dated badly and often silly. A certain famous sequence is nowhere nearly as effective as everybody says it is

The supporting cast here doesn't really come through, but this is a unique noir with a fantastic performance from Tierney in an unusual role for her. The first half is a very slow burn (perhaps a bit too slow) and she plays it perfectly. It feels like a melodrama until it becomes noir, and I feel it foreshadows to some degree some of the themes of the erotic thrillers that wouldn't become popular for decades after this like Fatal Attraction or Basic Instinct. Enjoyable but flawed.

A beautiful film with an ugly story that unravels at a right pace. Tierney is great in her role as a woman in love whose jealousy and possessive character bring destruction to her marriage. The ending would have needed revision but otherwise not much to criticise.

Great sets. Ellen is splendidly realised by Tierney. But the resolution seems contrived and unbelievable.

Huh, thought I had rated this one already. Near great film noir with some gorgeous scenery and Gene Tierney being one of the best femme fatales ever.

It's chilling that the sets and characters here are so beautiful, and yet the evil lurking in one of them is so dark and ugly. It's a gripping story (at least until the screwball courtroom scene, although Price gives it his all) even with some very vanilla characters and a plot that doesn't really stand up to later analysis.

There's much to be said for these twilight shades of Technicolor, and the beautiful countryside locations, and Gene Tierney's eyes, and Vincent Price's forceful oration, and the surprising depths of depravity to which this film sinks, and so on and so on. But nevertheless it keeps me at arm's length, quite easy to watch but not as titillating as other tales of Sirkian similarity. This Freudian psychodrama registers a bit hokey and dated, perhaps bordering on misogynistic.

So cold and warm at the same time. That was such a remarkable feeling. Then again, it was a remarkable movie. Especially with those color combinations and style. Almost like watching a moving painting with a disturbed subject. The subject being Gene Tierney, all in the center of things. Enchanting, would be a understatement.

A very haunting and complex film. I'm still working out how I feel about it.

The comparisons to Sirk are unmerited, as "Leave Her to Heaven" is irredeemably hokey even for a pulpy technicolor melodrama. The trial scenes at the end are especially impossible to swallow. Beautiful outdoors views though, and I liked the main musical theme.

Gone Girl 1945 in TECHNICOLOR. ;)

The ending is quite stupid by all means.

A great noir-drama with a striking performance by Gene Tierney. It all seems perfectly harmless for a while, with some pleasant Technicolor and some pretty standard romantic development, but it goes into some very dark, unexpected territory as Tierney slowly reveals her insane jealousy and paranoia. The closing scenes are a bit anticlimactic but the long stretch before them is excellent.

watched: 2014, 2016, 2020

not HATE, ruth, LOVE! richard's love FOR ME!!!

What a stupid cross-examination: "In June, you happy with your wife? - Yes. How about July? - Yes. You loved her in July. How about August?" Fuck off.

Dripping with atmosphere.

A little cheesy at times (eg, court room scene), and a bit slow, but Gene Tierney's performance is really great. Was kind of annoyed at how pudding faced everyone looked though.

A very solid thriller, even though it moves a bit too slowly for it's own good. Also, I thought that Harland was annoyingly perfect and uninteresting. I guess his blandness just makes Tierney's performance stand out more.

It looks really nice and it's definitely the best performance that I have seen Gene Tierney give. It's got a lot of other good performances too, like Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain and Vincent Price in one really good scene. Plus, it gets menacing, in a near-melodramatic way.

Fine noir although since I don't find Tierney terribly attractive, I had to strain to believe anyone would fall for her so hard for this particular femme fatale. Still, altogether I was rather impressed and my attention never once drifted.

#976

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No-holds-barred melodrama of the old school; what seemed lush production at the time now looks tatty.

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