Alternative Film Guide

Possessed (1947)

Direction: Curtis Bernhardt. Screenplay: Silvia Richards and Ranald MacDougall; from a story by Rita Weiman. Cast: Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey, Geraldine Brooks, Stanley Ridges, John Ridgely, Moroni Olsen

 

 

From the moment we see her shuffling across town in a comatose stupor to the homicidal climax, Possessed is Joan Crawford’s picture all the way. And once you get past some of its contrived psychobabble, this Curtis Bernhardt-directed melodrama is also one of her best. (Note: This is not to be confused with a totally unrelated 1931 Crawford vehicle of the same name.)

In the 1947 film, Crawford plays Louise Howell, a private-duty nurse inexplicably obsessed with David Sutton, a cynical, hard-drinking mechanical engineer played by Van Heflin. That brings up my biggest objection to Possessed: the casting of the bland Heflin in a role that required an actor with a certain amount of animal magnetism. This viewer, for one, was unable to understand what made him put the starch in her ankle-strap pumps. Someone with sex appeal, say, Richard Widmark, would have been infinitely more appropriate.

That said, Possessed offers a solid narrative (screenplay by Silvia Richards and Ranald MacDougall, from a story by Rita Weiman) and excellent production values, while Curtis Bernhardt is in top form. Apart from the intermittent psychobabble, the film is a believable portrayal of a woman obsessed with a man who rejects her.

(Possessed contains a scene in which Joan is given the same I.V. concoction — to induce a confessional — that she will give to Trog some 23 years later. Only, Louise doesn’t think about dinosaurs. Instead, she remembers the circumstances that caused her mental breakdown.)

Now, I was bothered by David’s continuous taunting of Louise, even after she marries someone else so as to try to forget him. In fact, David is such a nasty slob that he fully deserves what he eventually gets. The problem I have with that conclusion is that we never really know what will happen to Louise. The doctor says she is not responsible for her actions, and she has already suffered enough. That’s it.

I guess it’s just too bad about David.

© Danny Fortune

 

THIS WOMAN IS DANGEROUS

MADE OF HONOR

THE DAMNED DON’T CRY

HUMORESQUE

THE BEAST WITH 1,000,000 EYES

WAY OUT WEST

MR. WU

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

SHADOWS

THE GANG’S ALL HERE

 

 

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