Review of Leave Her to Heaven (1945) by Chad D — 14 Sep 2010

Leave Her to Heaven is a little-known classic melodrama starring Cornel Wilde as a Richard Harland, a writer, and Gene Tierney as Ellen Berent, a woman obsessively in love with him. Vincent Price co-stars in a small but juicy role as Ellen's ex-fiance.

Tierney, whose sad history includes a nervous breakdown and stints in multiple mental asylums, is excellent here. Ellen is a cruel, calculating, and ultimately tragic figure. She meets Richard Harland on a train while she is reading his very own book. She is immediately drawn to him, claiming he looks exactly like her father. The two are thrown together again while vacationing in New Mexico. Very shortly after they begin to show interest in one another, Ellen announces to her family that she is engaged to Richard--which is all well and good, except that this is news to Richard as well. Poor Richard pays a heavy price for allowing himself to be "duped" into marriage with a clearly unstable woman.

Soon after their wedding, it becomes clear that Ellen is obsessed with Richard to the point where she can't stand to have other people around the two of them--she wants him to herself in the most absolute way. Danny, Richard's younger brother who is confined to a wheelchair, comes to live with the couple at their isolated lake house. It's not long before Ellen is scheming not so innocent ways to get him out of their lives.

I won't reveal any spoilers, but suffice it to say that Ellen's "Fatal Attraction"-style love has serious consequences for multiple characters. It all culminates in a court room where Vincent Price, the betrayed ex-lover of Ellen's (and also a lawyer) cross-examines Richard with an unintentionally hilarious intensity.

Leave Her to Heaven isn't perfect. Some of the major plot points are too ridiculous to be believed--why, after all, would a sensible man like Richard get involved with someone who is clearly a psychotic? And there is a love triangle involving Ruth, Ellen's cousin, that seems tacked on.

In addition, the melodrama was a little much--although it definitely worked well in some particularly horrifying and emotional scenes. Unfortunately, the musical score is nearly overwhelming at times.

Despite its flaws, Leave Her to Heaven is beautifully filmed, entertaining, and pleasantly intense. The perfect weekend matine.