Leave Her To Heaven: Charlie's Strange Aunt on a Train

This is my contribution to The Best Hitchcock Film That Hitchcock Never Made blogathon, hosted by Tales of the Easily Distracted and ClassicBecky's Brainfood. Click here to check out the rest of the awesome posts! Some people have a great imagination!

A beautiful woman, beautiful locations, gorgeous color and murder. Put them all together and what do you get? A film that wasn't made by Alfred Hitchcock,  but could have been. Maybe.

Leave Her To Heaven is the feminine answer to Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. There always seemed to me to be a little psycho link between Uncle Charlie and Ellen Berent. Let's see...

Uncle Charlie: handsome, charming, evil. He fell on his head as a child, presumably the reason for his twisted mentality.

Ellen: Beautiful, selfish, charming, evil. She mourns the loss of the father she loved obsessively and needs a replacement.

Even the supporting players seem similar...

Emma Newton: loving, stupid, so besotted by Charlie.

Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde): loving, stupid, so besotted by Ellen

Young Charlie: she knows what evil lurks beneath the smooth surface of Uncle Charlie's charm.

Ruth Berent: she knows what evil lurks beneath the smooth surface of Ellen's perfection.

Both stories take place in lovely, peaceful locations. Shadow of a Doubt gives us deceptively simple Santa Rosa, California. Leave Her To Heaven gives us gorgeous New Mexico and Maine homes, color and locales more reminiscent of Hitchcock's later films. In both stories, the beauty of place masks an evil unseen.

Peaceful Santa Rosa

The beautiful desert of New Mexico

Back of the Moon, Maine - a perfect place for a murder

Both stories start with a train ride into this peaceful place. Charlie famously arrives and departs on a train to Santa Rosa. Ellen and Richard meet in a charming scene on a train as Ellen is on the way to her father's funeral. Here, a little taste of Bruno from Strangers on a Train creeps (and I do mean creeps) in. Like Guy, Richard unwittingly enters into a tangled pact.

A train brings Uncle Charlie and also takes him away (for good)

A fateful meeting on a train

Do you think Ellen and Bruno would have gotten along?

What Spins this story on its head is that the evil at its heart is the beautiful woman. Sometimes a Hitchcock beauty was bad (Madeline/Judy of Vertigo and Marnie come to mind), but they were usually redeemed or reformed by love (except for Judy's faulty footing at the top of the bell tower). Ellen, so possessive of her man that she kills both his brother and unborn child, is beyond redemption or reform and manages to use her considerable powers for one last punishment from the grave (poor hubby goes to jail as an accomplice for his silence).

Ellen wins - always

Directed by John Stahl, Leave Her To Heaven contains one of the most disturbing murders on film. Ellen, jealous of the love her new husband has for his handicapped brother, takes him out in the lake for a swim and coldly watches him drown. Gene Tierney, here so beautiful and so much more than a pretty face, is masterful. This is one cold cookie who could give Bette Davis's Regina Giddens a run for her money.

This is one scene that might even have made Hitchcock a little jealous (but not as jealous as Ellen, I hope). What's wrong with Ellen? She's a beautiful, freakin' psycho, that's what! Beautifully dressed, groomed and photographed, she is the Hitchcock heroine in brightly colored negative. 

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Bewitched: Women Who Cast a Spell: Vivien Leigh, Gene Tierney and Louise Brooks

Halloween is coming soon, but I am not a real fan of the scary. I am, however, a fan of the witch.

As we all know, there are good movie witches and bad movie witches (Glinda and the Wicked Witch of the West taught us that), but by far the most fun movie witches are the sleek and seductive ones. They don't just cast a spell, they bewitch. Kim Novak, Nicole Kidman and Veronica Lake have all played witches who use their considerable powers on their real and reel audience. But there are other witches among us, those stars who, although never playing witches, seem to cast a spell whenever they appear. The feminine powers of each of these lovely enchantresses are of the highest order.

Vivien Leigh

Like a sorceress out of King Arthur's court, she looks as though she knows her way around a magic wand and crystal ball. She may have been the perfect "English Rose," but there was always a touch of the other-worldly about Vivien. Of course, the feminine wiles of her Scarlett O'Hara are legendary. In retrospect, no one could have brought such mystical allure to the role. Even when she is a proper (and no-so-proper) English lass, such as in "Waterloo Bridge" or "A Yank at Oxford," a barely concealed passion for more than the ordinary bubbles ever-so-close to the surface. 

Look into my eyes and pay the taxes on Tara!

Her later films, such as "A Streetcar Named Desire," "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone," and "Ship of Fools," displayed a tattered magic, but magic, nonetheless. There is no doubt in my mind that Vivien, if she were so inclined, could cast a spell any time, any place.

Gene Tierney

Described as "lynx-like," there is something utterly feline and primal about this woman. Dress her up in the best 40s fashions and she is sublime, but in furs she look positively at home.

Just look at him trying to figure out when the exact moment
he surrendered control occurred. Shall I tell him it was before we met? 

No matter what the role, it is impossible to get over her face. Sure, she is a Mad Men gal in "Laura," but do we really think that Waldo and McPherson are on the hunt for Miss Hunt because of her talent? And doesn't Mrs. Muir look like a cat who has enjoyed her cream? Sexy Rexy may think he's in charge, but I think Lucy Muir is the one who is casting the spell on the old sea dog. 

You will do my bidding, you will do my bidding, you will do my bidding.

Even as the obsessive Ellen in "Leave Her to Heaven," we forgive her because, well, she was special, wasn't she?


Louise Brooks

Do you really think she was unconsciously spellbinding? I think not. This is serious witchcraft at work here. The enchanting Louise has long been the subject of those who have fallen under her spell. But she is a tricky witch, as she pretends to know not the effect she has on mere mortals. She once described herself as a rich man's pet ocelot, an exotic pet to be paraded before envious onlookers. I think she was the one who held the leash.

Felines rarely look you in the eye...

unless they want to cast a spell on you.

Though her magic was potent, she wasn't much interested in cinema enchantment. Her book of spells is short, with her trio of European films ("Pandora's Box," "Diary of a Lost Girl," and "Prix de Beaute") her crowning glory. But if the magic is powerful enough, it leaps off a static photograph and continues to cast a spell. 

As we enter this autumnal season of enchantment, feel free to fall under the spell of a sleek and seductive movie witch. They may be sometimes troublesome, but they are oh so worth it, don't you think?

Catch "Dreaming of City Lights" and "Dreaming of Gaslight" over at My Movie Dream Book

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Career Girls: Daisy Kenyon, Laura Hunt and the Dana Andrews Connection

What do Daisy Kenyon 

Joan Crawford as Daisy Kenyon

and Laura Hunt 

Gene Tierney as Laura Hunt

have in common?

You mean besides being beautiful, artistic career girls (Daisy a commercial artist, Laura in advertising) and having FABULOUS New York City apartments?

You mean besides going out to fancy New York City restaurants and nightclubs?

Laura and her beau, Shelby, have a liquid lunch

Daisy and her 2 men have a civilized dinner 

Besides looking chic?

Smart Girls dress smartly

Just a "little something" Laura slips into for a typical evening soiree

This guy - Dana Andrews!

Dana Andrews: Loving Laura

Dana Andrews: Loving Daisy

Dana Andrews seemed to like those independent career girls!

Both films, directed by Otto Preminger, present the plight of those smart-but-sometimes foolish career women of the 1940s. The wartime "Laura" (starring the beauteous Gene Tierney as Laura) gives us the tale of a young woman whose success is almost unbearably perfect. She is beautiful, talented, tasteful and sweet. Of course, she has to be a nitwit about men. That's where Dana Andrews comes in.

In "Laura" he's the tough but tender cop who calls women dames, but knows a lady and a nice portrait when he sees one. He's good for Laura and eventually saves her glamorous hide from psycho Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) and wimpy and weak Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price). Actually, before meeting Detective McPherson, the manliest person in Laura's social circle was her aunt (Judith Anderson).

Judith Anderson's Ann Treadwell speaks the truth
 to her niece: "I'm not a nice person, Laura."

Naturally, it all ends well, with Laura rushing into the arms of the detective who saves her.

But, what if things didn't work out for Laura and her detective? Fast forward a few years. Could Daisy Kenyon's story be Laura's future?

Post-war Dana was not so good for poor "Daisy Kenyon" (Joan Crawford). Here he's the married hot-shot lawyer who annoyingly calls everyone "honeybunch" and is stringing poor Daisy along. He is the man who never lost a case and always gets what he wants. The chief thing that he wants is to maintain his marriage and keep Daisy on the side until he is ready to make a move. Where Laura is in the first bloom of youth, Daisy sees years wasted on a married man flying by. In defiance of Andrews' control of her, she takes up with a moody and haunted Henry Fonda (in a rare "dark" role). Dana eventually loses a case, is dumped by his ultra-neurotic wife (Ruth Warwick) and tries to make things right with Daisy (see, he's Dana Andrews - a nice guy after all), but Daisy sticks it out with Henry, who claims to really love her - really. And it appears he does, although Daisy has to get into a car accident and trudge home in the snow, wearing just flimsy high heels and a mink before she realizes it.

"Laura," is a classic. But Laura Hunt, other than being extremely beautiful, is not a very interesting character, mainly because she is so young and poised and perfect. Those jaded, corrupt and just plain nutty older folks who surround her are what make the story hum.

Dana Andrews, Vincent Price and Clifton Webb all have eyes for Gene Tierney's Laura

"Daisy Kenyon," while not a classic, is interesting precisely because Daisy is becoming a woman of a certain age. Here she is, a successful commercial artist, and she is still acting like a schoolgirl over her married lover and wasting precious years foolishly waiting for him to leave his wife. Daisy is a good sport, but she knows it's time for a change. She was strong and independent enough to land a great career and a swell apartment, but those cannot make up for lost time. Luckily, Henry Fonda (who Joan, for some reason calls "Pee-tah" rather than just "Peter") shows up and hangs in there for Daisy, outsmarting the smarty-pants lawyer and winning her love in the end. It's been said that Joan Crawford was too old for this role (she was 43), but that's the point: Daisy was too old to keep living the life of the girlfriend of a married man. She knows it's time to take control of her own destiny.


While Laura says all the right things about a career, it's really loves she's after. Daisy, on the other hand, sees her work as her salvation and sanity.  When the going gets sticky, Daisy works. She has no intention of giving it up for either man.

Both Laura Hunt and Daisy Kenyon presented a glamorous image of the 1940s independent New York City career girl. The glamour, the freedom, the wardrobe! No matter how many dumb choices they made for love (it goes with the territory, right?), their allure was irresistible. When Fonda and Andrews try to force Daisy Kenyon's hand to make a choice between them, she says,"I'll do my own thinking, thank you - and my own existing." I wonder how many young girls sat in theaters around the country and said to themselves "I want that life."

Daisy makes up her own mind!

There weren't many role models out there for independent-minded females in the 1940s. While both "Laura" and "Daisy Kenyon" offer imperfect views of career women, they both give a fledgling glimpse of the freedom, the glamour, and yes, the heartbreak, of an independent life.

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