Leave Her to Heaven
Directed by John M. Stahl

A passing shadow living in a three-dimensional body, Ellen’s (Gene Tierney) problem, as detailed by her mother, is that she simply loves too much. As Ellen meets a young writer named Richard (Cornel Wilde) on a train ride, the initial impression suggests something akin to Before Sunrise. But whether it’s cinematographer Leon Shamroy’s muted colors or director John M. Stahl’s high angled compositions, an eerie quality permeates throughout much of Leave Her to Heaven. And when a young Vincent Price (!) briefly enters the fold as one of Ellen’s besmirched lovers, this decidedly becomes less like a Richard Linklater romance and more like a David Fincher murder mystery, in what ends up becoming something of a prototype to Gone Girl. Ellen quickly weds Richard and the two, along with Richard’s brother, set off to their own Eden. But Ellen’s inability to share Richard’s attention leads to a series of tumults that costs Richard more than he bargained for.

This was one of two films featured in the Siskel programming that I hadn’t seen before and given the era, it’s surprisingly one of the most radical. Whereas George Cukor’s Gaslight is traditionally rooted in the film noir genre, Leave Her to Heaven proves to be less classifiable. The color palette and compositions are all reminiscent of things you’d traditionally see in Japanese cinema of the era, particularly those of Yasujirō Ozu. And while Tierney’s performance is a clear evocation of the era (she Acts, in a capital A sort of way), it’s intriguing to see her mesh with the far less bombastic qualities of the film. While the film isn’t quite as exhilarating or brutally incisive as the aforementioned Gone Girl, the DNA of Leave Her to Heaven is clearly stowed in that film’s nucleotides.