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POSSESSED (1947) is a somewhat underrated Warner Bros.noir. With an excellent central performance from its star Joan Crawford this highly charged drama should be better thought of than it is and deserving of much more exposure. It is one of Crawford's best pictures so this overdue release on DVD is something of an event!

Crawford, fresh from winning an Acadamy Award for "Mildred Pierce" looked as if she was trying for another one here with her well measured portrayal of a neurotic private nurse in the employ of Raymond Massey. But she is unable to deal with the intensity and frustration of her unrequited love for a young engineer (Van Heflin). It all gets too much for her and she finally snaps culminating in a tragic final reel!

Crawford gives one of her great wide-eyed antagonistic performances with fine support from Van Heflin, Raymond Massey (in one of his more amiable roles), the ill-fated Geraldine Brookes (whose previous film for Warners just before this was as Errol Flynn's younger sister in "Cry Wolf") and Stanley Ridges as Crawford's psychiatrist.

From a cracking screenplay by Silvia Richards and Ranald McDougall (who also wrote "Mildred Pierce") the picture turned out to be a splendidly absorbing drama thanks to the smooth and solid direction by Curtiz Bernhardt, the stylish and sharp monochrome cinematography of Joseph Valentine, an effective score by the great Franz Waxman (featuring Schumann's rhapsodic "Carnaval - Opus 9" "played" by Van Heflin) and most of all to the outstanding performance of Miss Joan Crawford.

A nice package - extras include a ten minute featurette on the noir aspects of "Possessed", a good commentary by film historian Drew Casper and an excellent trailer.

For the young Joan Crawford, MGM was the perfect studio. All that gloss, rags to riches, Gable, and gowns. But MGM had a hard time with actresses as they aged and the old formulas weren't working anymore - Shearer, Garbo, and Crawford being three such examples. The other two quit, but Joan went over to Warner Brothers and revived her career.

It was a good move. I love the Crawford films at Warner's. They were grand potboilers enlivened by her presence.

Possessed is post-war, and after the war, the new rage was psychology. This movie is full of it. I'm not sure the diagnosis and terminology is correct in the film, but in layman's term, Crawford plays a total whack job. As her story unfolds to a doctor, she's a nurse taking care of Raymond Massey's wife, and she's seeing Van Heflin on a casual basis. When she falls in love with him, Heflin announces he's restless because of the war and is taking off. And that's when Joan takes off - emotionally. She becomes completely obsessed with him, and this leads to hallucinations, hysteria, and finally a psychotic break. She has able assistance by Heflin, who pops in and out and gets involved with Crawford's stepdaughter (Crawford is now married to the widower Massey). When the movie begins, she's wandering the street saying "David," which is Heflin's name in the movie.

One of the posters suggested Tyrone Power for this role. I'm all for him in any movie, and it's true, the presence of a big star as David would have elevated the film to a grander status. As it is, it's an excellent vehicle for Crawford, who runs the gamut of emotions.

Raymond Massey is stoic and solid as Crawford's new husband, and the lovely Geraldine Brooks, who died too soon, plays the stepdaughter. Her youthful vivacity is in sharp contrast to Crawford's borderline insanity and makes for great watching. Heflin, as the object of all the possession obsession, is smooth and detached.

But make no mistake about it. This is Joan Crawford's show and she makes the most of it. The script will keep you interested, and you won't be able to take your eyes off of Joan descending into madness.

If Glenn Close's Alex Forrest had gotten the Joan Crawford treatment in the 1987 thriller "Fatal Attraction", we'd get more of an examination into her mind rather than the Alfred Hitchcock "Psycho" finale we were stuck with. You don't get any closer than Close with Joan Crawford as the ultimate psychopath, a woman of multiple emotional problems that make her a sad case to behold.

This was the second film called "Possessed" that Crawford made, and in each case, the word "possessed" had a different meaning. The 1931 film, her first chance to utilize her famous 1930's MGM glamor after several years as a jazz baby, had her being possessed by a man (Clark Gable), but here, "possessed" indicates the demons inserted into her mind which have made her the picture postcard for "Diary of a Mad White Woman". She's also a nurse, so there will be comparisons to Kathy Bates' character in "Misery" as well. She takes care of the equally mad heard but not seen wife of Raymond Massey, a doctor himself involved in his own hell. When she allegedly commits suicide, Crawford remains on, taking care of Massey's young son and fighting with his older daughter (Geraldine Brooks) whom Crawford eventually becomes convinced is taking away the love of her old flame, Van Heflin, who gave her the heeve-ho months before. Like any mental illness, it subsides for a while, and Crawford settles into a seemingly happy marriage with Massey, but then Heflin returns, and all of the demons start up all over again.

Yes, Crawford does go over the top in this one, but here, it is part of the character, having fits that seem to make no sense-at first. As you see what this woman is going through in a story told through flashback, you empathize with her. Crawford is first seen wearing no makeup roaming the streets of L.A. (in heels of course) and ends up in the hospital where her back story unfolds. Van Heflin is supposed to be the one to blame for her going "Berserk" but it really goes beyond that. He is not a villain, only a bit of a scoundrel, and he does let her down gently. Raymond Massey provides much tenderness as the man she admits she doesn't love when she agrees to marry him which shows his versatility considering all of the villains he's played. Geraldine Brooks allows us to see the kindness in her initially resentful daughter, only resorting to distrust of Crawford when it is pushed to that.

This is without a doubt Crawford's finest performance (closedly followed by "Humoresque"), more layered than her Oscar Winning role in "Mildred Pierce" and by allowing herself to show us what she looks like underneath all that pancake, Crawford proved she was an actress first and a star (a very close) second.

Never underestimate a woman in love. Such seems to be the message of "Possessed", a film that was obviously tailor made for its star, Joan Crawford. As directed by Curtis Bernhardt, this film will not bore the fans of the genre, or its star.

If you haven't seen the film, maybe you should stop reading here.

"Possessed" presents us Louise Howell, a nurse, for the ailing Mrs. Graham, a wealthy recluse. Louise's charge is a woman from hell. When this woman dies under mysterious circumstances, it appears to herald the end of Louise's employment. Prior to that, we see Louise during a tryst with a neighbor of the Grahams, David Sutton. They have had an affair and David decides to end it, much to Louise's chagrin.

Dean Graham, the rich widower, asks Louise to stay after his wife's death. Will a marriage proposal be too far behind? Well, Dean proposes and Louise accepts. Her life is transformed from mediocrity into a life of luxury. The only sour point in Louise's new found happiness is Carol Graham, the daughter of the dead woman who blames Louise for the accident and death of her mother.

Will Louise find happiness with Dean? Will David see how much Louise loves him and come back to her? Will Carol and Louise ever be friends? Those are the questions that will be answered in the movie, not by this observer. The film is involving, although having seen some of these melodramas prepares us for all possible answers.

Joan Crawford does an impressive job as Louise. This woman gave the star one of her best characters ever. She goes through a range of emotions right before our eyes. Van Heflin, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have been the obvious choice for David, although he was an excellent actor, but in this movie doesn't have much to do. Raymond Massey, as Dean, is enormously appealing. He shows us a Dean who is a generous man. A young Geraldine Brooks makes a good impression as Carol the girl that is deprived of her mother at an early age.

"Possessed" is a wonderful film. It will not disappoint the fans of this genre.

Possessed, the second of two films with that title made by Joan Crawford, is typical Forties soap opera and probably would be forgotten today if it weren't for Crawford's performance. As she runs through a whole gamut of emotions exponentially, you will be glued to your seat.

A seemingly normal woman on the outside, Crawford's got a whole lot of issues. She's being dumped by younger boy friend Van Heflin and she won't call it a day.

Heflin's professional association with Raymond Massey doesn't help matters. Crawford works as a nurse for Massey's invalid wife and when the wife dies, Crawford excepts Massey's marriage proposal.

Joan is so conflicted here. By now she realizes Heflin is a no good love 'em and leave 'em rat, but she still pines for him. And jealousy is working here too, because Heflin has taken a shine to Massey's daughter Geraldine Brooks.

It's an extraordinary job by Crawford. Rage, jealousy, unrequited love, she shows them all and at the same time. No wonder she got her second Oscar nomination. She lost however to Loretta Young in The Farmer's Daughter.

Heflin is good, but if this had been made at 20th Century Fox, his role would have been perfect for Tyrone Power. What a classic Possessed would then have been.

Obssessive love affairs have been a Hollywood staple for years upon years now with varying degrees of success, and here the formula wins. Joan Crawford, fresh out of her Oscar win in MILDRED PIERCE, acts the hell out of her role as the ill-fated Louise Howell, a former nurse who has collapsed in the middle of a street moaning "David... David.... " The thing is, she is an unknown person in a strange town and a team of psychiatrists try to find out the reason behind her madness.

POSSESSED is a good, soapy yarn told in flashback with some nice twists and turns, directed quite well by Curtis Bernhardt who gives the movie a moody noir feel, and while at times Louise's character can be quite unsympathetic, going from possessive to manic to moody (and more so once "David," played by Van Heflin, re-enters her life), there's a certain sorrowfulness about her inability to start again with her own life as a married woman, and thankfully Crawford is able to convey this perfectly. One powerful sequence which shows how great an actress (as opposed to star) she would have become if given true roles and a chance to emote while expressing little is the fantasy sequence where she imagines she has killed her step-daughter (Geraldine Brooks). Brooks has been going steady with Heflin and Crawford, not over him yet, is seething. When she confronts her, there is a struggle, secrets are revealed, and down the stairs goes Brooks. Then Crawford realizes this never happened, but to see her cruel eyes staring out from a face that looks tortured and evil and demented all at once as she waits for Brooks is chilling and the best thing in the movie.

The only flaw in the film is the need to explain Crawford's descent into schizophrenia at the end: it recalls the same procedure Hitchcock would adopt for PSYCHO. Madness is always best when left undiagnosed, but then it was deemed necessary, and this robs the film of what might have been a perfect ending: Crawford screaming "David! David! David...!" over and over again. Definitely one to seek and watch.

... because by the time Joan Crawford does away with Van Heflin's character at the end, the main thing I was afraid of was that she would stop with only one bullet. What a contemptible cad he played!

This was one of those post war films trying to get scientifically to the bottom of mental illness, specifically Louise's (Joan Crawford), when she is picked up on a city street catatonic and looking for David - that would be Van Heflin's character. But this film is not all test tubes and therapy. There's plenty of melodrama to keep the viewer interested.

Through flashbacks you see that David and Louise were having an affair, and that Louise fell deeply in love with David, the piano playing construction engineer who says he has wanderlust because of the war. He breaks it off with her because he says she is smothering him, but it's just not that he doesn't want to get married, it's just that he doesn't want to marry her.

But does David take Louise's pain seriously and give her time and room to heal? Nope. He shows zero consideration and goes down the next day and gets a job from Louise's employer. Makes fun of her pain and is constantly popping in and out of her life via his employment. When she marries her employer, the wealthy Mr. Graham, David invites himself to the wedding, says snide things to Louise, hangs around the house, and gets involved with and ultimately engaged to Louise's new twenty year old stepdaughter. David is 35. So the man that Louise has always loved will be her son-in-law? No wonder she goes insane.

Louise starts seeing and hearing things. Starts thinking that she has killed people only to realize it was a hallucination. So did she really kill David or just wish that she did? Watch and find out.

This film had great atmosphere and Joan is in fine form as a woman who is losing her mind. Would it have ever happened if David hadn't hit her so hard emotionally? Who knows. Massey is good as Dean Graham, a stern presence as always, but believe it or not he and Joan as newlyweds kicking up their heels on a ballroom floor is actually believable. Geraldine Brooks is good as Carol - daughter of Dean Graham. She plays it somewhat snobby and acts like, well, a twenty year old girl. Not 16. Not 25. So seldom did a production code era film get a college age girl's character and maturity just right. This is one of those times.

It's too bad Joan spent so many years at MGM being put into bad roles often in bad films and not more years at Warner Brothers, a studio that knew how to put her in roles that played to her strengths. This is one of my favorite Joan Crawford films. I'd recommend it.

Here's loony tunes Joanie being all "I love you" to Van Heflin who is being all "get lost" and she just can't let go....ever....I just watched "The Two Mrs. Carrolls" where Bogart plays a murderous psychopath so this movie was appropriate. Whereas Bogie ends up killing one wife and almost another, here we have Joanie in love with one man( Heflin) and marrying another after she confesses to killing his first wife...or did she...or maybe not...oh, well, she's nuts so we don't really know. Whenever she's is around Heflin each time he shows up in the flick, she goes into uber overdrive schitzo. Finally she does go off the deep end and murders Heflin as he is about to go off to marry her husbands daughter. Ouch. So somehow she manages to make it from back east to L.A. then to the hospital Psych ward, where we do all these flashbacks. Finally, alls well that ends stupid and its THE END. The movie has more holes than a sieve but whenever Joanie goes ga-ga her close-up are worth the price of admission.

Classified by many as film noir, this one plays more like an overly dramatic melodrama and soap opera IMHO. Joan Crawford plays an unstable woman who slowly slips into madness after being rejected by Van Heflin. To make matters worse, Heflin is now dating Crawford's step daughter following Joan's rebound marriage to Raymond Massey. Sounds pretty sappy, and, it really is.

I did like the performances of both Heflin and Massey but for whatever reason, I couldn't really take Crawford seriously in this one and found her role to be hammy and over the top. A lot of folks praise this movie and Joan's work but it must have slipped right by me. I didn't find it all that entertaining but it definitely was atmospheric in spots.

****SPOILERS**** Looking like a combination homeless bag lady and something that the cat dragged in Louise Howell,Joan Crawford, aimlessly walks the streets of Los Angeles asking and looking for just one thing, the only word that comes out of her mouth, David! Taken to the city's municipal hospital Louise, admitted as a Jane Doe, is declared by the head of psychiatry Dr. Harvey Willard, Stanley Ridge, as suffering from a complete mental breakdown and put under strong medication to bring her both mind and memory back to normal.

It's when Louise is being treated with mind altering and psychotic drugs that she remembers what brought her to this state of insanity and it had to do with her former lover confirmed bachelor and swinging construction engineer and part time piano player David Sutton,Van Heflin, the David that Louis was asking for at the beginning of the movie. Louise and David had a hot and sizzling relationship going between them but David felt that it was getting a bit out of hand and wanted to put the breaks on it. This decision on David's part has Louise go off her nut to the point of almost losing both her composer, when David was around, and her ability to look after her and Davids employers Dean Graham's, Raymond Massey, very ill wife Pauline whom Louise, a licensed nurse, was taking care off.

Davids hold on Louise is so strong that it totally warps her mind having the love sick woman go into fits of anger and self pity over his treatment of her by wanting to have nothing to do with Louise. It's during this time that Pauline ends up jumping into a nearby lake drowning herself with a mind numbed and guilty conscience Louise feeling responsible for Pauline's death or suicide. while Louise is so stuck up on David she doesn't realize that her boss Mr. Graham has fallen madly in love with her and out of the clear blue sky proposes marriage to a totally surprised Louise.

You would have thought that Dean Graham marrying Louise, who grudgingly accepted his proposal, would have straightened her out but it only has the reversed effects with Louise's step daughter Carol, Gerldine Brooks, coming into the picture and into her life. At first Carol was anything but affectionate to her step-mother Louise feeling that she was having an affair with her father Dean Graham behind her mothers back which lead her to kill herself. It took Carol's father Dean to straighten her out on her mothers, and his wife's, tragic death in him being present when she took that one step beyond off the rock and into the lake drowning herself. Louise at the time was nowhere in sight being that it was her day off from her job as Pauline's nurse. It's also told by Carol's father that Pauline was very sick and what she thought or said, about him and Louise having an affair, was just wild and unfounded thoughts that she conjured up in her both sick and confused mind.

It's just when it seemed that Louise had her life straightened out with David gone out of it and Carol accepting her as her mother that things really took a downward turn with David unexpectedly showing up again. Stung by the love bug David, back from his job for Mr. Graham in Canada,has gotten really hot for Carol, some 15 years is Junior, and this is something that Louise just wont take lying down or standing up. Louise in trying to split Carol up from David has her turn against her with Carol and David scheduled to tie the knot as soon as possible to just stick it to her intrusive and annoying step-mother.

Getting nowhere with Carol in trying to maligned David in what a two-timing rat he is, which is a total lie, Lousie then goes on to confront David threatening to blow him away, with her handgun, if he goes through with his marriage to Carol. David a bit too sure of himself and thinking that Louise won't go through with it calls Louise's bluff which turned out to be the very last thing that he ever did!

Back to the present and in the hospital Louise is now in a total vegetable with her mind completely gone. Dean summoned to his wife's bedside can only hope that she'll recover even if she has to face justice in David's untimely death which she'll very probably get off on an insanity defense. Dr. Willard tells a grieving Dean Graham that his wife has a very good chance to recover and that he'll take a personal interest in seeing to it and do everything possible to make it happen.

We can only hope with the great advances in mental therapy, since 1947 when the movie "Possessed" was made, and psychiatric studies that what Dr. Willard told Dean Graham turned out to be true.

"Possessed" (1947) is one of Joan Crawford's last great outings as the grand dame of Warner Brothers, in a film so deeply disturbing that even today it tends to hold an audience spellbound in its neurotic tension. After a woman is found wandering the streets and collapses inside a diner, muttering the name 'David' she is rushed to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation. Of course, you just know this is going to end sadly.

Crawford plays Louise Howell, nurse to an ailing wealthy recluse. At the same time, she's taken up romantically with the neighbor, David Sutton (Van Helfin). But David recognizes something odd about Louise, something tragic and flawed and oh, so mentally unstable that it scares him into calling the whole affair off – much to Louise's dismay and chagrin. When Louise's elderly charge suddenly dies under mysterious circumstances, Dean Graham (Raymond Massey), the rich widower, asks her to stay on. This, of course, eventually leads to Louise becoming Dean's wife. However, Louise's happiness as the newly christened socialite of the realm is threatened by Dean's daughter, Carol (Geraldine Brooks) who blames – or perhaps intuitively suspects that the death of her mother was no accident.

What is particularly shocking about this film is the way in which director, Curtis Bernhardt baits his audience with snippets of murderous intent that are played out for maximum effect and then, later exposed as merely the ravenously dangerous thoughts of the film's protagonist. Yet, if Louise can't discern between what is real and what she imagines out of thin air, then how can we, as an audience? Crawford's performance as Louise is impressive to say the very least. Most convincingly she deteriorates from a congenial heroine to dangerous psychotic before our very eyes.

Warner's DVD transfer is not up to snuff. The gray scale has been rendered with deep solid blacks and the maximum amount of detail presented even in the darkest scenes. But there's way too much film grain in many scenes and some severe water damage about 48 minutes into the film (that lasts for less than a minute but gives the illusion of a cluster of fire flies darting about the screen). The audio is mono but cleaned up. Extras include Drew Casper's audio commentary that is spooky in its own right, as well as a featurette proclaiming "Possessed" as the quintessential film noir – the latter is a bone of contention for this reviewer. Although "Possessed" is a fine example of film noir story-telling, it pales to "Mildred Pierce" as far as Crawford film noir vehicles go.