Gene Tierney and Vincent Price

Unlike virtually all of the best known and loved films of the noir genre, including several starring Gene Tierney (Laura, Where the Sidewalk Ends), this 1945 film offers all the pleasures of noir, but in lurid Technicolor.  In addition, the wicked and murderous Ellen Berent, played by Tierney, stalks not the hard streets of the city, but the pastoral wilderness of Maine and New Mexico, and some of her crimes are perpetrated in the daytime!  Her mother, played by Mary Philips, can only say, “There’s nothing wrong with Ellen.  It’s just that she loves too much.”  Tierney earned her only Oscar® nomination for this performance, and Leon Shamroy took home a statuette for his brilliant cinematography.

Cast Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, Vincent Price, Mary Philips, Ray Collins, Gene Lockhart, Reed Hadley, Darryl Hickman, Chill Wills.

Director John M. Stahl.  Producer William A. Bacher.  Screenplay Jo Swerling (based on the novel Leave Her to Heaven by Ben Ames Williams).  Cinematography Leon Shamroy.  Art Direction Lyle Wheeler, Maurice Ransford.  Set Decoration Thomas Little.  Film Editing James B. Clark.  Costumes Kay Nelson.  Music Alfred Newman.  Orchestra Arrangement Edward B. Powell.  Sound E. Clayton Ward, Roger Heman.  Special Effects Photography Fred Sersen.  Transparency Projection Shots Sol Halprin, Edwin Hammeras.  Makeup Ben Nye.  Presented by Darryl F. Zanuck.  20th Century-Fox.  1945.  35mm.  110 mins.  Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.

Academy Award® winner: Color Cinematography (Shamroy).
Academy Award nominee: Actress (Tierney), Color Art Direction (Wheeler, Ransford, Little), Sound Recording (20th Century-Fox Studio Sound Department, Thomas T. Moulton, sound director).