Possessed (1947)

After last week's Conflict, here's another solid Bernhardt noir entry. The man may not have been one of the great noir directors (as witnessed by this film's repetitive "psycho-babble" by the doctors, the undeveloped plot ‘device’, err character played by Alexis Smith in Conflict, and the absolute mess of a plot in Sirocco), he have a talent for beautiful, Von Sternberg expressionist mise en scene. Bernhardt manages to take us to a completely different world in each of his noirs than say that of a "realistic/semi-documentary" film. Crime/thriller events do take place in his films, however they lie within a living nightmare: a Val Lewton-esque landscape in which conventions found in horror are "allowed" to exist in these noir stories (truth serums, "ghosts" from beyond the grave, over-the-top, abstract hallucinations, to name a few).

Louise Howell: A “Fully-Fleshed” Femme Fatale?
When it comes to femme fatales, few film noirs completely focus on the psychology behind these deadly women. Sure, there are many great noir actresses who give the stock character great depth, but most of the time we must accept that they were just “born bad”. As of what I’ve seen, there are only two films that actually trace the transition of a weak, oppressed woman into a dominating femme fatale: Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People and Bernhardt’s Possessed (and I hear Crime of Passion takes Barbara Stanwyck down the same path as well). Whereas Irena’s (of Cat People) deadliness grows from her fear of her inherited curse (a metaphor for her sexuality, the femme fatale’s key weapon), Joan Crawford’s Louise Howell is driven to become a murderess and manipulator (and just a plain psycho) by her own fatal obsession (and over that of a homme fatale), among other factors. On the flip side, this viewing I see Louise as a product of the neurotic, ruthless environment in which she lives in.

In the noir world, even those mousy, spinster nurses can grow to be deadly. David Sutton (Van Heflin) introduces Louise to a life of love and sex, two things she has never experienced before (this must be why she keeps returning to such a cad). Of course, while Louise considers this one night stand a new beginning, David sees her as just another woman he can seduce and abandon, so it’s anything but pretty when he calls it quits, and upon further meetings rejects every advance Louise makes to “rekindle” their sham of a romance. The next 90 minutes of the film have Joan Crawford going through even more hell, facing a crazy mother/patient and daughter who spit out wild accusations, the mother’s mysterious suicide, and David returning once more to seduce the naïve daughter Carol, while Joan watches. No wonder why she’s gone mad, I think Mildred Pierce had it good compared to her.

Then comes the fun part, in which Joan Crawford (as usual) rises from the ashes, pulling out all the stops to get even with David (and in the meantime convincing herself, again, that she’s never lost him). She sadistically teases him with passive aggressive remarks at dinner, manipulates Carol and Dean to believe her sick fantasy of David (and takes pleasure in telling him when he confronts her). Then you have it, the classic “gal with a gun” scene of all noir in which Louise shoots David with a smile on her face. So she goes into a state of catatonia straight afterwards, but boy she ended it with a “bang,” didn’t she?

The Cast

Unlike the typical “Joan Crawford” film, we have a strong supporting cast that makes the film feel more like a collaborative effort (regardless of Joan being the obvious star and driving force of the picture). Van Heflin delivers his otherwise harmless lines with an acid tongue, making Dean a heartless, arrogant cad who thinks only of number one rather than what could have been simply a man simply trying to move on from a codependent woman. Playing the other straight man is Raymond Massey, giving his one-note character a sense of great kindness and understanding with a dash of being emotionally disturbed himself (Do we really ever feel confident about his murder alibi, whether or not it was true (which it likely is?). Playing the first of the Crawford Film’s “Veda” clones, Geraldine Brooks may have been Crawford’s own “safe” choice, but she gives a rotten, malicious performance in her opening scenes that may put Ann Blyth to shame. Her transition into a likeable daughter willing to start a friendship with Louise is completely believable, making David’s return all the more hard hitting to the viewer. Last but not least is Crawford, giving a first rate performance by being unafraid (in Crawford standards) to completely de-glamorize herself in order to make Louise’s psychosis believable and most menacing. This has been called camp, and in the right frame of mind it most definitely could be, but do not look at Crawford’s performance as camp in itself- that’s just the bulging eyes, rubber lips, and caterpillar eyebrows you see.

Written by Markham