Leave Her to Heaven (1945)

When: Wednesday, July 1st at 21.00
Where: Benaki Museum (see map below) | Free entrance | G-rated

In his most famous (but also unusual) work, John M. Stahl gives surprisingly extravagant dimensions to a story of ill-passion and lethal jealousy. Leading lady is a cold-blooded beauty who is determined to employ all means necessary to prevent anyone from coming between her and her husband.

Cinematographer Leon Shamroy, who was rightly awarded with an Oscar for this film, dips this far-fetched drama in such a technicolor and photogenic frenzy that drives the film into the realm of unworldly and puts it in an ideal contrast to the morbid and pitch-black content of the film.

Prompted by an underground dreamy texture, which provides unrealistic magnitude to the occurring events, and sometimes even elevates them into the realm of the mythical, «Leave Her to Heaven» is the telling of a passionate love-story, a vampire worship and a fatal obsession. All this is uniquely hidden behind Gene Tierney’s poisonous beauty and magnificently perceived by the director’s paranoid all-American carte postal. Loukas Katsikas

Directed by: John M. Stahl
Starring: Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Vincent Price, Jeanne Crain
Year: 1945
Running Time: 110’