Possessed (The 1947 Joan Crawford Film)

Possessed (1947)

Runtime: 108 minutes

Directed by: Curtis Bernhardt

Starring: Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey, Geraldine Brooks, Stanley Ridges

From: Warner Bros.

First off, more than 1,000 people now follow me on Letterboxd?! This happened last month and I would like to thank everyone for following me despite my lengthy reviews, too many of which I look back and either sigh at a mistake or groan at something which could have been written better. My harsh self-criticism aside, thank you, each and every follower. I am quite surprised at the number of followers when I usually don't seek out people to follow... it's typically people finding my page/my reviews.

The reason why this movie was watched on Criterion was not just that I had seen the unrelated 1931 movie Possessed that also starred Joan Crawford; November is also considered noirvember by many film fans. Thus, I'll try to see a few of those this month. Plenty have been viewed since the fall of 2014 (45 in all) yet there's no shortage of worthwhile pictures to see in the future.

While this was more melodrama than noir, at least I was entertained. The plot is similar to a verity of noirs I've seen in the past: it begins with a big event then flashes back to how this predicament took place. Here, Crawford is experiencing what people would now categorize as “a mental health episode.” In a hospital bed, she explains her situation: in short, her mental health goes down the toilet due to unrequited love... Van Heflin's David is a cold guy-mainly obsessed with math and engineering-who doesn't love her as much as she loves him. The problems she has while being a private nurse to a rich family only compounds her problems.

While its treatment of mental health won't always look great by 2020 standards, thankfully it's not tasteless & it was a relief that Dan wasn't a one-dimensional character... even if he sometimes appears to be a jerk, he gets points for being honest and he isn't uncaring when Joan's at her most irrational. It was an always interesting tale which looked nice throughout; while the cast was solid throughout, Crawford was naturally the standout. I was happy to see this on the Criterion Channel.