Leave Her to Heaven ~ Take Care of My Little Girl
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Leave Her to Heaven ~ Take Care of My Little Girl hat becomes a psychopath most? Author Richard Harland (Cornell Wilde) alley but on a lake in Maine. But make no Well, in the case of Leave Her to meets the stunningly beautiful Ellen Berent mistake – the gorgeous Gene Tierney’s WHeaven (1945), it wasn’t moody (Gene Tierney) while on a train. These two homicidally jealous Ellen Berent is the fa - black-and-white, it was ravishing Techni - strangers on a train fall in love, she with him talest of femmes in this gorgeously restored color and the radiant Gene Tierney. But can because he reminds her of her recently classic.” Technicolor and film noir walk hand in dead father, with whom she was very close, hand? In Leave Her to Heaven the answer and he with her because, well, who wouldn’t And, of course, what helps make the Leave is a resounding yes. fall in love with someone that beautiful. Her to Heaven the classic it is is yet another Complicating things just a little is the fact great score from Alfred Newman. It’s short, Based on the successful novel by Ben that Ellen is already engaged to prosecutor but what’s there is choice Newman, begin - Ames Williams, Twentieth Century-Fox gave Russell Quinton (Vincent Price), but she ning with the three ominous tympani hits Leave Her to Heaven the class treatment simply jilts him and marries Richard. Slowly leading into a classic Newman main title, all the way down the line. The director was but surely it becomes apparent that Ellen is and then his beautiful underscore at just the John Stahl, who was an expert at glossy pathologically jealous of anything or anyone right moments. Half of what great film scor - melodrama, having directed Imitation of Life her husband takes too much interest in. ing is about is where, when and how to use and Magnificent Obsession (both remade And then things start happening. Harland’s music and no one was better at under - decades later by that other master of glossy disabled younger brother (Daryl Hickman), standing that than Alfred Newman. melodrama, Douglas Sirk), and, just the who he loves and is very protective of, goes year before, The Keys of the Kingdom for out boating on the lake with Ellen – there The previous release of Leave Her to Fox. he “accidentally” drowns while Ellen looks Heaven on FSM presented only about on. Later, pregnant Ellen “accidentally” trips twelve minutes of the score – here we pres - The screenplay was by Jo Swerling, who’d and falls down a flight of stairs, killing her ent it complete and in improved sound from worked on Gone With the Wind, The West - and Richard’s unborn son. Richard begins first generation elements. erner, Blood and Sand, The Pride of the to think that Ellen was responsible and she Yankees , and Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat . finally confesses to him that she was. He Because of the brevity of Leave Her to Photography was by the great Leon Sham - leaves. She decides to kill herself and in the Heaven , we’ve paired it with the never-be - roy, a Fox regular who’d started working for process frame her adopted sister, Ruth fore-released Newman score to the Fox film the studio in the late 1930s, and who’d al - (Jeanne Crain), because Richard is fond of Take Care of My Little Girl. While the two ready photographed such films as State her. There is a trial, an outcome, and even - films couldn’t be further apart, they do Fair, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Greenwich tually a happy ending for Richard and Ruth. share a few similarities – Jeanne Crain ap - Village, Wilson, The Black Swan, Stormy pears in both, and one cue from Leave Her Weather, Down Argentine Way and others, Gene Tierney creates one of the greatest to Heaven ended up in Take Care of My Lit - and who would go on to photograph such femme fatales ever put on screen. For her tle Girl and we present that cue as the Fox classics as Forever Amber, Prince of performance she was nominated for an bridge between both scores. The 1951 Foxes, Twelve O’Clock High, David and Oscar for Best Actress (she lost to Joan Technicolor film was directed by Jean Neg - Bathsheba, The Robe, The Egyptian, Crawford in Mildred Pierce) . The film re - ulesco, with a screenplay by Julius J. Ep - There’s No Business Like Show Business, ceived rave reviews for all concerned and, stein and Philip G. Epstein (from the novel Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing , The in addition to Miss Tierney’s nomination, re - by Peggy Goodin), and starred Jeanne King and I, South Pacific, North to Alaska, ceived three other Oscar nominations: Best Crain, Dale Robertson, Mitzi Gaynor, Jean Cleopatra, The Agony and the Ecstasy, Art Direction – Interior Design - Color, Best Peters, and Jeffrey Hunter. The film gar - Planet of the Apes , and that’s not even Sound, Recording, and Best Cinematogra - nered some controversy due to its criticism scratching the surface – surely one of the phy – Color. Leon Shamroy took home the of college sororities, with several college longest studio/cameraman relationships in prize for his stunning work on the film. sororities protesting the film. They stopped the history of the cinema. doing so when they realized the publicity Over the years, Leave Her to Heaven’s rep - was actually helping rather than hurting the Add to all that a perfect cast, including utation has only continued to grow. Martin film. We’re thrilled to present a new to CD Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, Scorsese has said it’s one of his all-time fa - Newman score, and it’s another Newman Vincent Price, Darryl Hickman, and charac - vorite movies. Critic Lou Lumenick, film critic treasure unearthed. ter actors Chill Wills, Ray Collins, Gene for the New York Post , talking about the film Lockhart, and Reed Hadley and you had for its restored showing in 2009 at the Film — Bruce Kimmel the recipe for success. And what a success Forum in New York, said “John M. Stahl’s it was – audiences flocked to the film and it masterful Leave Her to Heaven sounds like was Fox’s highest grossing film of the a contradiction in terms – a film noir in eye- 1940s. popping Technicolor, with its most chilling scene taking place not in a dimly lit back.