The Heiress (1949)

What a lavish history of films we are fortunate enough to have in this country. And I count "The Heiress" as one of the best. Combine a wonderfully told story with a masterful director (William Wyler), and add to that superb cast, and you have the formula for a masterpiece as we do here.

Olivia de Havilland gives the performance of her life as Catherine Sloper, the socially awkward and homely daughter of surgeon Dr. Sloper (played by Ralph Richardson). She brings such a strong performance as her character evolves from a timid, shy and innocent young lady to a hardened, disappointed and bitter woman. I don't know that I have ever seen an actress give such a convincing evolution, before or since. She truly earned her Oscar win for Best Actress. Richardson also delivers a believable performance as the ruthless father that is extremely disappointed in his daughter, and never fails to let her know it. At the same time, there is a hint of fatherly love below the surface trying to protect his daughter from what he perceives is a fortune hunter in the suitor of Montgomery Clift's character, Morris Townsend.

The photography in the film is amazing as it conveys the deep emotions in the film so adequately. You feel Catherine's loneliness and awkwardness, and the scenes involving the elopement, and later the final rejection, are quite hauntingly portrayed.

One of my favorite lines in movies is from this film when Catherine's Aunt tells her "Can you be so cruel?" to which Catherine coldly replies "Yes, I can be very cruel. I have been taught by masters." This is a film you will want to see multiple times to uncover all the layers and details of the very deep and tragic story of "The Heiress".

Fmovies: Catherine (Olivia de Havilland) is a thoroughly ordinary girl with one thing commend her—her money. That's the view of her father (Ralph Richardson), who believes he is cruel only to be kind. He takes a dim view of the handsome and charming man (Montgomery Clift) who courts her. Surely this idler's only possible motive for proposing marriage is to get her money. Catherine's aunt (Miriam Hopkins) may agree, but believes the two should marry anyway. Catherine is deeply in love, but her fiancé will forever change her view of herself, of her father and of human nature as a whole.

William Wyler directs Augustus and Ruth Goetz's adaptation of their own play, suggested by Henry James's "Washington Square," and it's a fine job by all. We rarely see such a subtle and precise view of people, presented in a way that allows us to draw our own conclusions about them. Is the father villainous and cruel? Is the fiancé a fortune hunter? Do we approve or disapprove of Catherine's decisions throughout the film? We're not told what to think.

De Havilland is fine at conveying the various shades of her many-faceted character. Richardson is excellent, making the most of his mellifluous voice and superb manners. Clift is good, though his diction is lazier than that of his co-stars'. I find Clift smug and unappealing, which doesn't detract from this particular character. Miriam Hopkins, a former leading lady, aged into character parts, gives a performance rich in detail and humor. Highly recommended.

The Heiress (1949)

Another gem from William Wyler. This is the director of so many sparkling, flawless interpersonal dramas it's hard to believe he isn't lionized alongside more famous greats. The problem (as he admits in interviews) is he had no real style of his own. And yet, as the years go by, his "style" begins to clarify a little. Watch "The Little Foxes" or "Detective Story" or this one, "The Heiress," and you'll see an astonishing, complex handling of a small group of people with visual clarity and emotional finesse.

There is no overacting here, and no photographic flourishes to make you gasp. There are no murky shadows or gunfights or even ranting and raving. No excess. What you have here is terrific writing (thanks in part to Henry James who wrote the source story, Washington Square) and terrific acting.

The three leads are all first rate actors, surely. Montgomery Clift a young and rising star, Olivia de Havilland already famous for earlier roles (including a supporting one in "Gone with the Wind"), and the terrific stage actor Ralph Richardson, who received an Oscar nomination for his role. It is de Haviland who is the heiress of the title, and she does tend to steal the show with a performance that you would think would tip into campy excess but which just veers this side of danger and makes you feel for her scene after scene. And she took the Best Actress award for it.

A good director manages to bring the best from the actors, which Wyler clearly does. But he also finds ways to make those performances jump out of the film reality into the movie theater. His fluid, expert way of moving actors around one another, of having them trade positions or look this way or that as they deliver some intensely subtle comeback line, is really astonishing. And easy to miss, I think, if you just get absorbed in the plot. So watch it all.

The story itself is pretty chilling and oddly dramatic (dramatic for Henry James, not for Wyler, who likes a kind of soap opera drama within all his focused restraint). The heiress (de Havilland) is being pursued by a fortune hunting and rather handsome man (Clift) and she doesn't realize his love isn't for real. But the father, with his slightly cruel superiority, sees it all and tries to subtly maneuver his daughter to safety. The result is a lot of heartbreak and surprising twists of motivation.

By the end almost anything can happen, within this upper class world of manners and appropriate reactions, and de Havilland rises to the challenge. It's worth seeing how. Terrific stuff from the golden age of the silver screen, for sure.

The Heiress fmovies. Because he so identified with England in his last thirty years (and even became a British citizen during World War I) people tend to forget that Henry James was an American - as American as his celebrated psychologist/philosopher brother William (the "good" James Boys, as opposed to their non-relatives Frank and Jesse), and his fellow Gilded Age novelists Sam Clemens/"Mark Twain" and William Dean Howells. His early writings, including "The American", "The Portait Of A Lady", and "The Europeans" were written while he was an American citizen. His later classics, "The Spoils Of Poynton", "What Maisie Knew", "The Ambassadors", "The Golden Bowl", and "The Wings Of The Dove", were written when he resided in England. The novels he wrote through 1897 ("What Maissie Knew" being the last of these) were short and controlled in terms of descriptions. But his final set of novels (beginning with "The Ambassadors")had a more flowery writing, as James struggled to find "le mot juste" in every description. Many like this, but I find it a peculiar failure. It takes him three pages of description in "The Wings Of The Dove" to show Mily Theale is looking down from an Alpine peak to the valley thousands of feet below.

"Washington Square" was written in the late 1870s, and was based on an anecdote James heard about a fortune hunter who tried to move in on one of James' neighbors in Manhattan. The neighbor, when a young woman, was wealthy and and would be wealthier when her father died (she was an only child). The father did not think highly of the daughter's choice of boyfriend, and a war of wills between the two men left the young woman scarred. James took the story and fleshed it out.

One has to recall that while ultimately this is based on James' great novel, the film proper is based on the dramatization by the Goetzs. So there are changes (one of which I will mention later). But the basic confrontation between the father and the suitor remains true. On stage the father was played by Basil Rathbone, and in his memoirs ("In And Out Of Character"), Rathbone makes a case that Dr. Sloper (his role) was not the villain in the novel - it was Sloper who was trying to protect his naive daughter Catherine from the clutches of fortune hunting suitor Morris Townshend. It's a nice argument, and one can believe that Rathbone/Sloper was less villainous than Morris. But his desire to protect Catherine does not prevent his cold and aloof treatment of her - he has little respect for her personality. This is tied to the Doctor's constant mourning of his wife (Catherine's perfect mother). It enables Dr. Sloper to compare and belittle his daughter.

The Goetz play and screenplay show (as does the novel) that the battle of wills between the two men only hurts poor, simple Catherine. There are only two major changes from the novel. First, in the novel Dr. Sloper does not discover how his contempt for his child loses her love. He only sees that Catherine will not see reason about what a loser Morris is. So he does disinherit her (she only has her mother's fortune of $10,000.00 a year, not her father's additional $20,000.00). Secondly, when Morris does return in the end in the novel, years have passed, and he is a querulous fat man. The dramatic high point when Catherine locks the door of the house on Morris is not in the novel.

Olivia De Haviland's

Henry James novel of spinster daughter of wealthy doctor being wooed by a fortune hunter is meticulously brought to the screen by Wyler and a stellar cast. The beautiful de Havilland, made to look plain and dull, is quite good in her Oscar-winning title role. Also fine are Clift as the gold digger and Hopkins as de Havilland's understanding aunt. However, the best performance is given by Richardson as the cold, domineering father who wants to protect his daughter but also despises her meek existence. Brown, who plays the maid, looks like a young Grace Kelly. The cinematography is excellent and there's a fine score by Copland.

I had the pleasure to watch again "The Heiress" 1949 movie tonight, and it is absolutely brilliant! ; what a gem! the script, the directing, set designs, lighting, but above all the acting, are all extraordinary. The performances by the three main characters are simply superb. Olivia De Haviland is utterly convincing in her transition from a, not so young, unwanted and unloved woman, into 3 different phases of her personality as the plot unfolds ; all her acting is beautiful. Montgomery Cliff delivers a great performance and mastery at portraying deceit with a charming smile. Ralph Richardson commands respect and holds an air of definite authority as Catherine's father. His aristocratic demeanor is also very well portrayed for a prominent New York gentleman of the late 1800's. The human tragedy of miscommunication between beings unfolds with impeccable timing. The film by today standards may be considered as slow, but underneath is found a study of characters that runs very deeply. The contrast between the real Love and the pretense is striking. You cannot help but feel sorry for the way the characters are held captives to a set of stiff conventions and untold feelings. A human tragedy at its best.