Possessed

Plot synopsis:
A woman (Joan Crawford) is found wandering Los Angeles, unable to say anything other than "David". Admitted to a hospital, she is coaxed into recounting her life.
She reveals herself as Louise Howell, an emotionally unstable woman who had worked as a nurse to the invalid wife of Dean Graham (Raymond Massey) in the Graham home. Louise fell in love with neighbor David Sutton (Van Heflin), an engineer, who loathes her smothering obsession with him; he ends the relationship and leaves the area to Louise's great hurt. Shortly after, Graham's wife drowns. It is undetermined whether she committed suicide or not. Louise remains with the family as they move to Washington, D.C., to care for the two Graham children: young Wynn and college-age Carol (Geraldine Brooks).
Time passes and David re-enters the scene, having taken an engineering job with Graham. He is surprised to find Louise with the family. Louise — still obsessed with David — makes a pass and is rebuffed. Moments later, Graham proposes to Louise and she accepts to salvage her pride. She tells him outright that she is not in love with him, but Graham pledges to make it work in spite of that.
Carol takes a fancy to David, much to the consternation of Louise, who tries to dissuade Carol from establishing a relationship with him. Louise's mind begins to decline with her obsession over David; she hears voices, has hallucinations, and believes her husband's first wife is still alive.
When David and Carol consider marriage, Louise tries to end their relationship. Graham is concerned about Louise's mental state and tries to persuade her to see a doctor. Believing her husband is trying to put her away, Louise bursts into David's apartment and kills him in a schizophrenic episode.
The psychiatrist to whom Louise has recounted her story pronounces her insane and not responsible for her actions. He laments that he had not seen her sooner, as he is sure that if he had, the tragedy could have been avoided. He tells Graham that he intends to help Louise back to sanity, though the process will be long and arduous, with much pain and suffering in store for her. Graham pledges his full support and vows that he always be there for her, no matter how difficult it becomes.

Tags: psychological, murder, flashback

Review:
In the film she plays Louise Howell, a woman who begins to suffer a mental breakdown after the man (Van Heflin) she loves walks away from her.
Before "Play Misty For Me" (1971) and "Fatal Attraction" (1987), comes this story of a nurse (Joan Crawford) who's attached to a man (Van Heflin), who eventually finds her too possessive and breaks it off, but she can not let him go.
This movie takes the smoldering talents of Joan Crawford and lets them burn the screen down, right before your eyes...she's utterly convincing as a fairly demented "possessed" lover, torn to pieces by hideous dysfunction.
I half expected him to start wringing his hands with an Igor-type `yes, master  I think it's working, master' look on his face every time one of the drugs he gave Joan Crawford began taking effect.
This is accomplished in spite of Ridges' misguided portrayal of Dr. Willard, and due in large part to Crawford's brave, unglamorous portrayal of patient Louise Graham.On the whole, Possessed is a very entertaining film that left me wanting to know what would happen next.I think the death of Dean Graham's first wife is rushed and a bit muddled.
CAST/PERFORMANCES: Joan Crawford (Louise Howell Graham)  Crawford's transformation from personally neurotic, yet mild, unobtrusive caregiver to scheming, paranoid, jealous, unstable woman scorned is fairly believable, given the plot.
I adore her voice, and the circumstances of the script, her role, and therefore her dialog really allow Crawford to express herself well, and she is a treat to hear as well as watch, as usual.Raymond Massey (Dean Graham)  Massey is such a natural actor that I always adore his performances, and here is just wonderful.
I think it was a good casting choice to go with Massey, as his self-effacing nature is perfect for this role.Van Heflin (David Sutton)  Despite the character's flaws (a very difficult role to play), in the actor's capable hands, it is done well.
In his inimitable style and voice inflection, Heflin has the best line in the film, which he delivers offhandedly while pacing the floor: `I'm sorry, Louise  I seldom hit a woman, but if you don't leave me alone, I'll wind up kicking babies.'  Geraldine Brooks (Carol Graham)  a lovely actress, who I am sure I've seen in other films, as her name sounds familiar.
Just what does Van Heflin's David have the makes Joan Crawford's Louise go literally mad for him?Doesn't appear to be that much in the looks department.
Since Geraldine Brooks and Raymond Massey portray these respective roles, there's sure to be strong convictions expressed.Made just two years after her Oscar-winning turn in "Mildred Pierce," Crawford is in her mature mettle here.
Possessed (1947)A taut, brilliant look at insanity coming out of obsessive love, and Joan Crawford plays it with enough perfection you wonder what kind of madness she had experienced herself first.
It's more along the lines of The Snake Pit. It stars out with Joan Crawford walking the streets in a trance-like state and she keeps on repeating the name David.
The flashback stars with Joan Crawford wanting to marry Van Heflin but he just wants to break the relationship off.
Joan Crawford turns in one of her best performances as a mentally disturbed woman in love with Van Heflin but married to Raymond Massey.
Possessed (1947) stars Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey, and Geraldine Brooks.
An intriguing, compelling script on mental illness keeps the audience guessing, with "Possessed", starring Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, and Raymond Massey....not exactly a cast made up of sublimely beautiful people.
It doesn't matter that Heflin wasn't the best looking fellow in the world, but he played his part expertly here, and had some of the best lines in the picture.I am not a big fan of Joan Crawford, but found myself hooked watching this film after about 20 minutes.
It stars Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raynond Massey and Geraldine Brooks.
"David," she mutters, "I'm looking for David." Awakening in an asylum, Ms. Crawford unravels her story In flashback, we meet Crawford as a relatively level-headed Washington nurse; in a rustic northwestern estate, she cares for the mentally unbalanced wife of wealthy Raymond Massey (as Dean Graham).
Mr. Massey's wife thinks Crawford is having an affair with her husband, but Crawford is really seeing World War II veteran Van Heflin (as David Sutton).
He returns to romance step-daughter Geraldine Brooks (as Carol), who thinks Crawford killed her mother to marry Massey The melodramatic plot continues, and remains fascinating throughout.
Director Curtis Bernhardt and photographer Joseph Valentine match Germanic-inspired "film noir" with their star in stylish black and white.********* Possessed (7/26/47) Curtis Bernhardt ~ Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey, Geraldine Brooks.
This has culminated in a narrow, one dimensional way of looking at film as in the case of Possessed.Accordingly, this has culminated in many consumers of this film to focus on the chief character Louise Howell (Joan Crawford).
The ignorance is apparent when Howell's husband Dean Graham (Raymond Massey), ex-lover David Sutton (Van Heflin) and step daughter, Carol Graham (Gereldine Brooks) are oblivious to Cowell's breakdown which is in fact symptomatic of schizophrenia.Pointedly, when making his diagnoses Cowell's physician's approach to the condition is indirect.
From here on in Crawford's film career took on a new direction.While the supporting cast in Possessed is credible their acting did not convey the depth of ignorance to mental illness as convincing as could have been.
Another Crawford gem.Funny how the character she portrays in this film looks like that of Gene Tierney in "Leave her to Heaven " which was released at about the same time;Like Gene Tierney ,in love with her late father,finds a substitute with a husband who resembles his beloved dad ,Crawford's idee fixe is to make David love her;and she too marries someone else just because her love works for her husband ;as Tierney's enemy is the others ,Crawford' s rival is her husband's daughter.But whereas Tierney portrays a ruthless femme fatale,Crawford is stricken with remorse:her obsession reaches its peak in that scene when the new wife feels the presence of the dead woman in the house by the lake (another analogy with "leave her to Heaven" );it drives her so mad she confesses to having committed a crime of which she is totally innocent.A long flashback,this film has to be ranked among the good psychological films noirs of the forties..
For once Joan Crawford is not quite in the center but part of a triangle, and the mise en scene beautifully takes account of that; her usual overacting is generally held in check by the performances of Heflin, Brooks and, to a lesser extent, of reliable character actor Raymond Massey.I would not be surprised had Van Heflin ranked this performance one of the best in his career.
She goes over-the-edge and somersaults all the way down to the bottom with sheer, unadulterated gusto.In "Possessed", Joan is in love with Van Heflin.
Crawford plays a woman who slowly begins to go mad when Van Heflin breaks up with her.
THE SNAKE PIT was Hollywood's first realistic treatment of mental illness and was a ground-breaking landmark film in that genre, a serious treatment of schizophrenia and of one woman's experiences in a state mental asylum and written by a woman who had been institutionalized herself.POSSESSED is a noir melodrama calculated to give JOAN CRAWFORD a chance to go insane with her mad, obsessive love for VAN HEFLIN whom she must have at all costs.
The 1940s was a decade wherein Hollywood became interested in making films where psychiatric disorders (alcoholism, mental illness) could be examined and became fodder for searing melodramas like THE LOST WEEKEND, SPELLBOUND, A DOUBLE LIFE and THE SNAKE PIT.POSSESSED is a striking example of Joan Crawford at her most persuasive, but fails to convince the viewer that the psycho-babble about her illness is the real thing.
"Possessed" is one of the best performances of Joan Crawford, but the movie is ruined by too many psychiatric explanations..
"Possessed" is good for the performance of Joan Crawford as Louise, a nurse who falls in love for a sadistic and self-centered David (Van Heflin).
Some reviewers say that it's Joan's best performance, and she sure does good things, but it's hard to believe a woman would fall in love so madly for a man who finds such visible fun in despising her completely, and the plot is always menaced by an overdose of kitsch.
Fine performance by Crawford (received an Oscar nomination) in this 1940's film noir drama dealing with mental illness..
A Joan Crawford's star-vehicle directed by German émigré Curtis Bernhardt, in POSSESSED (not the namesake film Crawford made in 1931 with Clark Gable), Crawford plays Louise Howell, an erotomaniac possessed by her desire over David Sutton (Heflin), an engineer who cannot reciprocate her with the same obsession.The film opens with a frazzled Louise roaming in the streets of Los Angeles, unable to utter another word besides "David!", she succumbs to a stupor and is taken to the hospital, under the treatment of Dr. Willard (Ridges), she lets up her stories in flashback from the falling-out between her and David, he considers her as a mere intermezzo in his life, yet she contends to be his theme song (aka, Schumann's Carnaval, Op. 9 piano solo), the music cue plays a significant role in the later stage which compounds Louise's descent into psychosis.
Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey and Geraldine Brooks give outstanding performances in a movie that is well ahead of its time.
However, it's not the portrayal of a yowling inmate but a normal-appearing woman whose insanity comes upon her slowly but inevitably.Miss Crawford portrays Louise Howell, nurse to the neurotic wife of oil tycoon (BEFORE we became dependent on Middle Eastern oil) Dean Graham.
This is not to be confused with the MGM film of the same name and also starring Miss Crawford, but costarring Clark Gable and made in 1931.In this story Joan has a passionate love affair with Van Heflin, hard to see him in this kind of role, who dumps her early on, causing our Joan to get crazy over him.
In this one, it's Joan Crawford so obsessed with lover Van Heflin that she literally goes crazy when he breaks off their affair and she instead marries dutiful but dull Raymond Massey.
His first wife, a mentally ill woman, commits suicide and Crawford plays the nurse that had taken care of her.
Van Heflin learns the hard way that you trifle with Joan Crawford's affections at your peril, and the fact that both Stanley Ridges and Moroni Olsen play psychiatrists gives a good idea of where this handsomely produced hokum directed by Curtis Bernhardt with expressionistic sets by Anton Grot and atmospheric photography by Joseph Valentine is going.
It all gets too much for her and she finally snaps culminating in a tragic final reel!Crawford gives one of her great wide-eyed antagonistic performances with fine support from Van Heflin, Raymond Massey (in one of his more amiable roles), the ill-fated Geraldine Brookes (whose previous film for Warners just before this was as Errol Flynn's younger sister in "Cry Wolf") and Stanley Ridges as Crawford's psychiatrist.From a cracking screenplay by Silvia Richards and Ranald McDougall (who also wrote "Mildred Pierce") the picture turned out to be a splendidly absorbing drama thanks to the smooth and solid direction by Curtiz Bernhardt, the stylish and sharp monochrome cinematography of Joseph Valentine, an effective score by the great Franz Waxman (featuring Schumann's rhapsodic "Carnaval - Opus 9" "played" by Van Heflin) and most of all to the outstanding performance of Miss Joan Crawford.A nice package - extras include a ten minute featurette on the noir aspects of "Possessed", a good commentary by film historian Drew Casper and an excellent trailer..
As her story unfolds to a doctor, she's a nurse taking care of Raymond Massey's wife, and she's seeing Van Heflin on a casual basis.
Joan Crawford, fresh out of her Oscar win in MILDRED PIERCE, acts the hell out of her role as the ill-fated Louise Howell, a former nurse who has collapsed in the middle of a street moaning "David...
" The thing is, she is an unknown person in a strange town and a team of psychiatrists try to find out the reason behind her madness.POSSESSED is a good, soapy yarn told in flashback with some nice twists and turns, directed quite well by Curtis Bernhardt who gives the movie a moody noir feel, and while at times Louise's character can be quite unsympathetic, going from possessive to manic to moody (and more so once "David," played by Van Heflin, re-enters her life), there's a certain sorrowfulness about her inability to start again with her own life as a married woman, and thankfully Crawford is able to convey this perfectly.
Such seems to be the message of "Possessed", a film that was obviously tailor made for its star, Joan Crawford.
The film is involving, although having seen some of these melodramas prepares us for all possible answers.Joan Crawford does an impressive job as Louise.
This story of romantic obsession, mental breakdown and murder provided Joan Crawford with one of the most memorable and successful movies of her career and an Oscar nomination for Best Actress (1947).
It's soon revealed that Louise had been deeply in love with a construction engineer called David Sutton (Van Heflin) who tired of her possessiveness and decided to end their relationship.
Shortly after, David had left to work in Canada.Louise continued to work as a nurse caring for the bedridden wife of a wealthy oil man called Dean Graham (Raymond Massey) and a little while later, tragedy struck when Mrs Graham was found drowned in the lake near to the Graham residence.
The anguish that she'd experienced over David and the feelings of guilt she'd had about Mrs Graham's death increased even further when Carol and David became romantically involved and the pace of her mental deterioration accelerated dramatically."Possessed" is a fine psychological melodrama, which features good acting performances and exploits the great interest in Freudian themes which was widespread in the 1940s.
She is sent to the psychiatric wing with catatonic stupor and Dr. Willard (Stanley Ridges) diagnosis that she has nervous disorder and injects some medicine to calm her down.She tells that she is a nurse named Louise Howell (Joan Crawford) that takes care of a paranoid woman named Pauline Graham in the family house in an island.
Meanwhile, Louise has a deterioration of her mental state and is schizophrenic; when she learns that David will marry Carol, she takes and ultimate decision."Possessed" is an engaging and melodramatic film-noir where the lead character gets insane and obsessed for an unrequited love for a construction engineer.
When they fish Massey's wife's body (you never see her, but here her voice on the intercom) out of the lake the film hits a dramatic point, and Louise (Crawford) is confronted with Heflin's presence in several great scenes that are full of tension.
Surely, not everyone would go to the extent Crawford goes in this film, but, as a woman working as a nurse to an invalid, she nor anyone who knows her would ever have expected her to.
Then I saw that she had on the same dress that she has found in when she was walking around at the beginning of the movie, and I knew that we were cutting to the chase.Joan's final confrontation with Van Heflin was a good one, and I liked some of his lines a lot in this scene, especially when he slapped her and said, "I'm sorry Louise, I seldom hit a woman but if you don't leave me alone I'll end up kicking babies."  Their interplay was interesting, and VH's attempts to regain control of the situation and save his own life were well done, I thought.
****SPOILERS**** Looking like a combination homeless bag lady and something that the cat dragged in Louise Howell,Joan Crawford, aimlessly walks the streets of Los Angeles asking and looking for just one thing, the only word that comes out of her mouth, David!
This decision on David's part has Louise go off her nut to the point of almost losing both her composer, when David was around, and her ability to look after her and Davids employers Dean Graham's, Raymond Massey, very ill wife Pauline whom Louise, a licensed nurse, was taking care off.Davids hold on Louise is so strong that it totally warps her mind having the love sick woman go into fits of anger and self pity over his treatment of her by wanting to have nothing to do with Louise.
Joan Crawford gives a great and almost hypnotic performance as Louise, 'a woman in trouble'.
Joan Crawford plays an unstable woman who slowly slips into madness after being rejected by Van Heflin.
To make matters worse, Heflin is now dating Crawford's step daughter following Joan's rebound marriage to Raymond Massey.
"Possessed" released in 1947, gives Joan Crawford one of her best performances at the height of her popularity at Warner Brothers.
Crawford stars as Louise, a seemingly cool, detached nurse who cares for an ill woman (whom we never see) who is married to a wealthy man named Dean (Raymond Massey).
Louise has also just been dumped by her lover David (Van Heflin) whom she was very much in love with.
Van Heflin is well cast as the heel, whilst the excellent Raymond Massey and Geraldine Brooks come close to rivaling Miss Crawford for our attention.
There was an old Joan Crawford film on TCM, and I became fascinated.At the point where I came in, Louise (the Joan character) was confronted by Dean Graham (Raymond Massey), who was unhappy about her having been out when his wife, Pauline, threw another tantrum.
I don't know why I didn't turn off the television right then.Louise is in love with David (Van Heflin).