There are two arresting, first-person POV shots in Possessed: early on, as Louise (Joan Crawford) is being wheeled into a hospital on a gurney and she watches the ceiling lamps pass overhead; and later, as she wanders through a possibly haunted lake house (the camera even turns to catch her looking at herself in a mirror). If these moments stand out, it’s not only because of director Curtis Bernhardt’s showy technique, but because they represent Possessed at its best: when it vividly captures the distressed mental state of its central character.
By this point in her career (having just won an Oscar for Mildred Pierce), Crawford had earned the right to do whatever she wanted, and she chose to dive into the madness of a woman unhinged. (Crawford also got an Oscar nod for her work here.) Louise is a strange Crawford character, in that she’s a mixture of Mildred’s defiant independence—not afraid to go after what she wants—and a more servile romantic. We first meet her wandering the streets of Los Angeles in a daze, mumbling the name “David.” At the hospital, her drug-induced recollections (leading to extensive flashbacks) reveal David to be David Sutton (Van Heflin), an arrogant engineer with whom Louise had been in love. He’s clear that he only considers their relationship a fling, but she clings to him, urging marriage. His eventual rejection leads to something of a mental break for Louise, who then hatches a vindictive plan.
The performance works because Crawford is never apologetic about Louise’s condition. A loss of control slowly creeps across her face as the movie goes on (in those hospital scenes, it’s drained away completely), painting a portrait of a woman for whom logic and reason has washed away, lost in a spreading ocean of mental illness. The movie’s treatment of this was probably progressive at the time—one doctor says he doesn’t like to use the term “insane”—even if there is also a fair amount of psychiatric mumbo jumbo that’s far less kind (including talk of “schizos.”) In the end, thanks to Crawford’s commitment, Possessed makes a fairly modern case for mental illness as a disease like any other.
Van Heflin doesn’t bring much to the film (his blandness makes it clear he’s not the root cause of Louise’s suffering), but Crawford does get some crackling scenes with Geraldine Brooks, in her debut, as a spirited younger rival. (Their moments recall the prickly relationship Mildred had with her daughter, played by Ann Blyth, in Mildred Pierce.) Possessed also boasts deep shadows and sharp glares, which place it in the film noir tradition. Yet the plot—which goes on to involve a dead wife and an empty estate—is reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock’s ghostly Rebecca. Crawford, sadly, never worked with the Master of Suspense; Possessed is about as close to that as we’d get.
