Leave Her to Heaven

Gene Tierney portrays a beautiful but unstable woman who marries successful novelist Cornel Wilde. Tierney wants to spend all her time with her new husband, but finds it impossible to do so thanks to his work and the frequent visits of family and friends. When Wilde's crippled younger brother ...more

A Technicolor melodrama infused with film noir pathology, John M. Stahl's Leave Her to Heaven (1945) combines vivid visuals with a coldly passionate performance from Gene Tierney to create a memorable femme fatale. Cornel Wilde's Richard is doomed the moment that Tierney's crimson-lipped Ellen fixes her ice blue stare at him and remarks on his likeness to her beloved, recently deceased father. Stahl suggests the force of that love in Ellen's expressionistic horseback ride to scatter her father's ...more