Review of Leave Her to Heaven (1945) by Les E — 22 Jun 2013

A noir in the purest sense of expressing the post-war disillusionment with the American Dream. Gene Tierney's unhinged sociopath functions as both the film's villain and its tragic heroine, as the ugly flipside to all those self-sacrificing mothers and wives ("I'll never let you go.

Never, never, never"). There's an undeniable thrill when Ellen Berent declares her unborn child a prison, a primal expression of every woman's secret resentment of the prisons of home and family as few films dare.