Possessed

Nobody can have a mental breakdown like Joan Crawford can. In Curtis Bernhardt’s Possessed, Crawford is introduced wandering the gray, empty streets, talking to herself, and accosting strange men, prompting the police to send her to the hospital, where, thanks to a patient psychiatrist, she’s able to recount what led up to her sorry state. It seems Louise Howell (Crawford) was a live-in nurse to a sick, older woman who died under mysterious circumstances. After her death, the woman’s husband, Dean Graham (Raymond Massey), reveals his attraction to Louise and proposes marriage, much to the displeasure of his spiteful daughter Carol (Geraldine Brooks in her film debut). Although hesitant to marry a man she doesn’t love, Louise weds Dean in the hopes of getting over her former lover, David Sutton (Van Heflin), a friend and neighbor of Dean’s whom Louise loved desperately, even obsessively, despite his callous treatment and abandonment of her. The emotions involved are all a bit overwhelming for Louise’s fragile mental state, which leads to an alternate reality which may or may not include murder. Waxman’s moody, piano-heavy score and Valentine’s dramatic use of high angles give the film a weightiness that adds to the intensity, especially during the extended opening sequence, while Fred MacLeans’s set decoration, especially the dramatic backyard and waterfront, have a poetic quality that makes us question how real it all is.