Leave Her to Heaven is a 1945 20th Century Fox Technicolor film noir motion picture starring Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, with Vincent Price, Darryl Hickman, and Chill Wills.
It was adapted for the screen by Jo Swerling, based on the novel by Ben Ames Williams, and was directed by John M. Stahl. Tierney received an Oscar nomination as Best Actress in a Leading Role for this film. The film grossed over $5,000,000 and was Fox's highest-grossing picture of the 1940s.
It tells the story of a young novelist, Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde), who meets beautiful Ellen Berent (Gene Tierney) on a train. They fall in love and are married. Harland soon finds his life blighted when tragedies take first his handicapped young brother, then his unborn son from him. Gradually, he realizes that his wife's insane jealousy, which turns her own family away from her, may be the cause of the tragedies in his life. Yet another shock awaits them all, as Ellen's emotions become uncontrollable.
The sets, including mid-century New Mexico and Maine homes to die for, were nominated for an Academy Award. Leon Shamroy's gleaming cinematography - providing a stark contrast to the dark themes - won an Oscar.
The title is a quote from William Shakespeare's Hamlet. In Act I, Scene V, the Ghost urges Hamlet not to seek vengeance against Queen Gertrude, but rather to "leave her to heaven, and to those thorns that in her bosom lodge to prick and sting her."
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