Possessed (1947)

[Adam Lounsbery]

If you like to see Joan Crawford get her crazy on as much as I do, then you'll love Possessed.

Curtis Bernhardt's fevered noir melodrama begins with a surprisingly unglamorous-looking Crawford wandering the streets of Los Angeles in a daze, asking everyone she passes if they've seen "David."

Crawford isn't wearing any makeup, and her journey through the early dawn streets reminded me of a similar scene that appeared a decade later in Louis Malle's Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Elevator to the Gallows) (1958), in which Jeanne Moreau wanders the streets of Paris without makeup. (Was Malle influenced by Possessed? It's certainly possible.)

The character Crawford plays, Louise Howell, is taken by ambulance to the psychopathic ward of the Los Angeles Municipal Hospital, where she is cared for by Dr. Willard (Stanley Ridges). He gives her narcosynthesis to lift her out of her catatonic stupor, and the tale of what brought Louise to this place is told through a haze of flashbacks and psychobabble.

Louise was a nurse in the employ of wealthy Dean Graham (Raymond Massey). Her job was to care for Graham's infirm wife.

After a brief love affair with an average-looking but very charming architect named David Sutton (Van Heflin), Louise became hopelessly attached to him. When David told her that he wasn't the marrying kind, and that he had to break things off with her, it began her spiral into madness. She was convinced that there was another woman, but he assured her there wasn't.

"Louise, don't hang onto me. You'll get hurt," he said in exasperation, and his words were prescient. The straitlaced, self-possessed Louise began to unravel.

Dr. Willard diagnoses her with a persecution complex. She thought that David breaking up with her was all part of a plan. Everyone was against her. Dr. Willard calls it "typical schizoid detachment ... split personality."

Despite its sometimes overheated story and dialogue, Possessed is a stylistic feast. Franz Waxman's musical score perfectly underscores every one of Joan Crawford's scenes, and Joseph A. Valentine's cinematography visually expresses her madness.

There are recurring visual motifs, most notably water. For instance, when David gets into his boat and leaves Louise sobbing on the dock, the churning water symbolizes her inner turmoil. The doctors hovering over Louise's bed discuss her case, then the scene cuts to a shot of the carafe of water by her hospital bed that dissolves into a shot of the water around Dean Graham's home.

When Louise stops the little pendulum of her bedside clock from ticking because it's "driving her crazy" the sound is replaced by the sound of dripping water outside her open window. She slams the window shut, trying to control her madness.

Possessed could never be called a realistic film. But that's not its goal. It subjectively depicts an unraveling psyche, and isn't afraid to veer into territory that sometimes seems as if it would be more at home in a horror movie than in a melodrama.

[MartinTeller]

(review from April 3, 2010)

Joan Crawford is riveting as a woman driven mad by romantic obsession. The opening of the film is really incredible, with Crawford roaming the streets of L.A. in a haze, beautifully photographed in a stark, expressionistic style (director Curtis Bernhardt cut his teeth in 20's and 30's Germany). When the movie delves into her insanity, it's at its finest, some very memorable sequences. Unfortunately, a lot of the connecting tissue is a bit ho-hum. I also didn't care for the ending, with the psychiatrist giving his Freudian analysis. Definitely worth seeing, especially for Crawford's performance, but it could use some tightening up in spots. Rating: 7

[Movie Memories]

I liked Possessed quite a bit and not only for Crawford (who has always been a favorite), but also Van Heflin who seems to always do a solid job in everything from Western, to War, to Noir.

[Adam Lounsbery]

Van Heflin is an underappreciated actor. He is one of those guys like Arthur Kennedy who's so good that most people don't remember all the movies he's been in because he really inhabits his roles and is average-looking.

[Harry Fabian]

Thanks for the good review, Adam. I taped Possessed off TCM awhile back, so I need to get it out. I don't recall the scene in Elevator to the Gallows, that you mentioned, so I will have to dig that out too for comparison.

[Adam Lounsbery]

The context is different, but I think what struck me was the vulnerability of the two actresses -- both very glamorous most of the time -- and allowing themselves to be vulnerable while wandering the streets and looking for a man.

[Steve-O]

Posted by Markham

After last week's CONFLICT, here's another solid Bernhardt noir entry. The man may not have been one of the great noir directors (as witnessed by this film's repetitive "psycho-babble" by the doctors, the undeveloped plot ‘device’, err character played by Alexis Smith in CONFLICT, and the absolute mess of a plot in SIROCCO), he have a talent for beautiful, Von Sternberg expressionist mise en scene. Bernhardt manages to take us to a completely different world in each of his noirs than say that of a "realistic/semi-documentary" film. Crime/thriller events do take place in his films, however they lie within a living nightmare: a Val Lewton-esque landscape in which conventions found in horror are "allowed" to exist in these noir stories (truth serums, "ghosts" from beyond the grave, over-the-top, abstract hallucinations, to name a few).

Louise Howell: A “Fully-Fleshed” Femme Fatale?
When it comes to femme fatales, few film noirs completely focus on the psychology behind these deadly women. Sure, there are many great noir actresses who give the stock character great depth, but most of the time we must accept that they were just “born bad”. As of what I’ve seen, there are only two films that actually trace the transition of a weak, oppressed woman into a dominating femme fatale: Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People and Bernhardt’s Possessed (and I hear Crime of Passion takes Barbara Stanwyck down the same path as well). Whereas Irena’s (of Cat People) deadliness grows from her fear of her inherited curse (a metaphor for her sexuality, the femme fatale’s key weapon), Joan Crawford’s Louise Howell is driven to become a murderess and manipulator (and just a plain psycho) by her own fatal obsession (and over that of a homme fatale), among other factors. On the flip side, this viewing I see Louise as a product of the neurotic, ruthless environment in which she lives in.
In the noir world, even those mousy, spinster nurses can grow to be deadly. David Sutton (Van Heflin) introduces Louise to a life of love and sex, two things she has never experienced before (this must be why she keeps returning to such a cad). Of course, while Louise considers this one night stand a new beginning, David sees her as just another woman he can seduce and abandon, so it’s anything but pretty when he calls it quits, and upon further meetings rejects every advance Louise makes to “rekindle” their sham of a romance. The next 90 minutes of the film have Joan Crawford going through even more hell, facing a crazy mother/patient and daughter who spit out wild accusations, the mother’s mysterious suicide, and David returning once more to seduce the naïve daughter Carol, while Joan watches. No wonder why she’s gone mad, I think Mildred Pierce had it good compared to her.

Then comes the fun part, in which Joan Crawford (as usual) rises from the ashes, pulling out all the stops to get even with David (and in the meantime convincing herself, again, that she’s never lost him). She sadistically teases him with passive aggressive remarks at dinner, manipulates Carol and Dean to believe her sick fantasy of David (and takes pleasure in telling him when he confronts her). Then you have it, the classic “gal with a gun” scene of all noir in which Louise shoots David with a smile on her face. So she goes into a state of catatonia straight afterwards, but boy she ended it with a “bang,” didn’t she?

The Cast
Unlike the typical “Joan Crawford” film, we have a strong supporting cast that makes the film feel more like a collaborative effort (regardless of Joan being the obvious star and driving force of the picture). Van Heflin delivers his otherwise harmless lines with an acid tongue, making Dean a heartless, arrogant cad who thinks only of number one rather than what could have been simply a man simply trying to move on from a codependent woman. Playing the other straight man is Raymond Massey, giving his one-note character a sense of great kindness and understanding with a dash of being emotionally disturbed himself (Do we really ever feel confident about his murder alibi, whether or not it was true (which it likely is?). Playing the first of the Crawford Film’s “Veda” clones, Geraldine Brooks may have been Crawford’s own “safe” choice, but she gives a rotten, malicious performance in her opening scenes that may put Ann Blyth to shame. Her transition into a likeable daughter willing to start a friendship with Louise is completely believable, making David’s return all the more hard hitting to the viewer. Last but not least is Crawford, giving a first rate performance by being unafraid (in Crawford standards) to completely de-glamorize herself in order to make Louise’s psychosis believable and most menacing. This has been called camp, and in the right frame of mind it most definitely could be, but do not look at Crawford’s performance as camp in itself- that’s just the bulging eyes, rubber lips, and caterpillar eyebrows you see.



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