Leave Her to Heaven

For the Van Druten play, see Leave Her to Heaven (play).
Leave Her to Heaven
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJohn M. Stahl
Screenplay byJo Swerling
Based onLeave Her to Heaven
1944 novel
by Ben Ames Williams
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyLeon Shamroy
Edited byJames B. Clark
Music byAlfred Newman
Color processTechnicolor
Production
company
20th Century Fox
Distributed by20th Century Fox
Release dates
  • December 20, 1945 (1945-12-20) (Carthay Circle Theater, Los Angeles)
  • December 25, 1945 (1945-12-25) (New York City)
Running time
110 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$8.2 million (worldwide rentals)[1]

Leave Her to Heaven is a 1945 American psychological thriller film noir melodrama[2] directed by John M. Stahl and starring Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, and Vincent Price. It follows a socialite who marries a prominent novelist, which spurs a violent, obsessive, and dangerous jealousy in her. It is based on the 1944 novel of the same name by Ben Ames Williams, adapted by screenwriter Jo Swerling.

Shot in Technicolor, filming took place in several locations in California, as well as Arizona and New Mexico[citation needed] in the summer of 1945. Leave Her to Heaven was released in the United States theatrically on December 20, 1945. The film was a box-office hit, grossing over $8 million, and was Twentieth Century-Fox's highest-grossing film of the entire decade.

In the decades following its release, Leave Her to Heaven garnered a cult following and has been the subject of film criticism for its unique blurring of genres, featuring elements of film noir, psychological thrillers, and melodramas. It has also been noted for its numerous visual and narrative references to figures in Greek mythology. The film's title is drawn from William Shakespeare's Hamlet, in which 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."

In 2018, the film was selected for the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."[3][4]

  1. ^ Solomon 2002, p. 65.
  2. ^ "Leave Her to Heaven". Filmsite.org. AMC Networks. Archived from the original on May 2, 2020. Retrieved May 2, 2020.
  3. ^ "National Film Registry Turns 30". Library of Congress. Retrieved May 2, 2020.
  4. ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2020-11-23.