Taglines: Hers was the deadliest of the seven sins.
Leave Her to Heaven movie storyline. In this Technicolor noir, young novelist Richard Harland accepts an invitation to write on a friend’s remote ranch. On the train ride to his New Mexican retreat, he meets beautiful Ellen Berent, a devoted daddy’s girl on a mission to scatter her late father’s ashes. Ellen sees so much of her beloved father in Richard while Richard is immediately drawn to her outward appearance.
The two quickly fall in love and marry without really knowing much about the other. As Richard settles into married life with Ellen, her provocative nature emerges from the shadows and he is gradually separated from the people he loves most. The couple’s once promising future together begins to resemble something other than the conventional love story he thought he committed to.
Leave Her to Heaven is a 1945 American psychological thriller film noir[1] directed by John M. Stahl and starring Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, and Vincent Price. It follows a socialite who marries a prominent novelist, which spurs a violent, obsessive, and dangerous jealousy in her. It is based on the 1944 novel of same name by Ben Ames Williams, adapted by screenwriter Jo Swerling.
Shot in Technicolor, filming took place in several locations in California, as well as Arizona and New Mexico in the summer of 1945. Leave Her to Heaven was released in the United States theatrically on December 20, 1945. The film was a box-office hit, grossing over $8 million, and was Twentieth Century-Fox’s highest-grossing film of the entire decade.
In the decades following its release, Leave Her to Heaven garnered a cult following and has been the subject of film criticism for its unique blurring of genres, featuring elements of film noir, psychological thrillers, and melodramas. It has also been noted for its numerous visual and narrative references to figures in Greek mythology. The film’s title is drawn from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in which 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.”
About the Story
While traveling by train in New Mexico, novelist Richard Harland meets Ellen Berent, a beautiful socialite from Boston. Ellen is particularly drawn to Richard, as he reminds her of her deceased father, to whom she had an obsessive attachment. Ellen is visiting New Mexico to spread her father’s ashes, accompanied by her aloof mother and her cousin Ruth, who was adopted by the Berents and whom Ellen considers a sister.
Richard and Ellen discover they are vacationing at the same luxurious desert resort, and begin a whirlwind romance. Richard is fascinated by Ellen’s exotic beauty and intense personality. The couple’s affair is interrupted when Ellen’s fiancé, attorney Russell Quinton, whom she is separated from, arrives at the resort unexpectedly. Ellen announces at that time that she and Richard are to be married, to Richard’s surprise.
Ellen and Richard marry in Warm Springs, Georgia before staying at Richard’s lodge on a lake in northern Maine. Their domestic life is copacetic at first, but it becomes gradually apparent that Ellen is pathologically jealous of anyone and anything Richard cares about, including his family and career. During an unexpected visit from Ellen’s family, her mother attempts to warn Richard that Ellen is prone to obsessiveness and a compulsion to “love too much.”
Ellen’s resentment only grows when Richard’s beloved teenage brother, Danny, crippled by the effects of polio, comes to live with them. One afternoon, Ellen follows Danny on the lake in a rowboat as he attempts to swim from one end to the other. Ellen knowingly encourages him to press on, even as he begins to struggle to stay afloat. She watches coldly from the boat as Danny sinks below the surface and drowns.
Danny’s death is presumed an accident, and Ellen feigns sympathy. After settling at their home in Bar Harbor, Richard is despondent. At Ruth’s suggestion, Ellen becomes pregnant in an attempt to please Richard, but later confesses to Ruth that she does not want the child, likening it to a “little beast.” One afternoon, Ellen throws herself down a staircase to induce a miscarriage.
She succeeds in terminating the pregnancy, and after recovering in the hospital, accuses Ruth of being in love with Richard, citing a dedication in his new novel that possibly alludes to her. Ruth rebukes Ellen by accusing her of causing the misery that has befallen the family. Richard overhears the argument, and begins to suspect Ellen is responsible for the deaths of Danny and their unborn child.
Richard confronts Ellen about Danny, and she remorselessly admits to having let him drown, and cruelly tells Richard she would do it again if given the chance. Following the confession, Richard leaves Ellen, but does not pursue criminal action as he does not believe there is sufficient evidence. After Richard departs, Ellen sends a letter to Russell—now the county district attorney—in which she accuses Ruth of plotting to murder her.
While on a picnic with Ruth and her mother several days later, Ellen deliberately ingests sugar laced with arsenic, unbeknownst to them. The poison causes Ellen to go into multiple organ failure over several days, and doctors are unable to save her. When Richard visits Ellen on her deathbed, she requests in his confidence that she be cremated, and that he scatter her ashes where she spread her father’s in New Mexico, to which he agrees.
Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
Directed by: John M. Stahl
Starring: Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, Vincent Price, Mary Philips, Ray Collins, Gene Lockhart, Reed Hadley, Darryl Hickman, Chill Wills, Olive Blakeney, Jim Farley
Screenplay by: Jo Swerling
Production Design by: Sid Bowen
Cinematography by: Leon Shamroy
Film Editing by: James B. Clark
Costume Design by: Kay Nelson
Set Decoration by: Thomas Little, Ernest Lansing
Art Direction by: Maurice Ransford, Lyle R. Wheeler
Makeup Department: Ben Nye
Music by: Alfred Newman
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: December 20, 1945
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