Mortal Sin (1945)

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Movie
German title mortal sin
Original title Leave Her to Heaven
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1945
length 110 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director John M. Stahl
script Jo Swerling
production William A. Bacher
for 20th Century Fox
music Alfred Newman
camera Leon Shamroy
cut James B. Clark
occupation
synchronization

Mortal Sin (Original title: Leave Her to Heaven ) is an American film noir by John M. Stahl from 1945 . The film is based on a novel by Ben Ames Williams and was produced by the Twentieth Century Fox film studio .

action

Richard Harland, a formerly successful writer, returns to Maine after two years in prison . People benevolently greet the man who borrows a kayak to get to his remote home. One of the observers of this scene is the lawyer Glen Robie, a long-time friend of Richard Harland's who also represented him as legal counsel. While Harland kayak away from the jetty, Robie tells a friend his story.

Richard Harland had been invited by Glen Robie to his ranch in Jacinto, New Mexico , years ago . On the train ride to see Robie, he meets the beautiful Ellen Berent, who is also one of Robie's guests with her mother and adoptive sister Ruth. Ellen is absorbed in a book by Richard Harland when she discovers him in the train compartment and doesn't stop staring at him. Richard's appearance reminds Ellen strongly of her beloved father, a scientist who died on an expedition and whose ashes she wanted to scatter in his favorite place in New Mexico. Richard is torn by the beautiful Ellen, whom he secretly watches while scattering her father's ashes. Ellen also fell in love with Richard from the very first moment. A little later, she broke off her engagement to prosecutor Russell Quinton, who followed her unsuccessfully to Jacinto to save the relationship. After separating from Quinton, Ellen makes a marriage proposal to Richard, which he accepts.

After they get married, the newlyweds move to Warm Springs , Georgia to visit Richard's younger brother, Danny, who is disabled and is being treated in a sanatorium. The visit lasts several weeks, during which Richard devotes himself to his new novel. Ellen takes care of her ailing, young brother-in-law, but she only does so to do Richard a favor and finally alone with her husband to his secluded house on a crescent-shaped lake in Maine, called "Back of the Moon". to travel on. When she learns of Danny's wish to live with Richard and her in Maine, she tries to appeal to Danny's doctor Mason, but to no avail, which leads to a first outburst of anger.

Ellen quietly endures the fact that Danny will live with her and Richard in Maine. Arrived in "Back of the Moon", she loses herself in pathological jealousy, which intensifies when her mother and her adoptive sister Ruth come to visit Richard at Richard's request to please his wife. The visit becomes a farce, and Ellen makes it clear to her family by means of cold feelings and an ugly scene that she will not tolerate them in her house. On their departure, Mrs. Berent and Ruth offer to take Danny to their property in Bar Harbor on the east coast, but Danny prefers to stay with his brother and his wife. A short time later, tragedy breaks out when Ellen encourages Danny to swim together to surprise Richard with his health success. In the rowing boat she follows the boy swimming to the opposite shore of the lake. When Danny's strength waned and he had a cramp, Ellen watched without emotion as he went down. She presents the cold-blooded murder as an accident, but Richard is in deep shock.

The couple move to Bar Harbor so Richard can better deal with his brother's death in a different environment. Here the two grow apart, much to Ellen ’s anger. To save the marriage, Ellen decides to grant Richard the desire to have a child, but the pregnancy is complicated and Ellen is prescribed constant bed rest by Saunders' family doctor. Full of jealousy of her adoptive sister Ruth, to whom Richard is dedicating his first book, and full of fear that a child might come between her and her beloved husband, she voluntarily rushes down the stairs. The fall leads to the loss of the unborn child, a boy, and an ultimate break with Richard. Shunned by her family and husband, Ellen reveals to Richard that Danny's death and her fall on the stairs were not accidents. Richard escapes from Bar Harbor. Ellen then plans her own suicide and dies a short time later of arsenic poisoning.

In a final letter before her death to her former fiancé, District Attorney Quinton, Ellen accused her adoptive sister of wanting to kill her. Thereupon Ruth is charged in a high-profile trial of the murder of her sister sister. During interrogation with Attorney Russell Quinton, she has to admit that she loved Richard from the very first moment. However, Richard can make it clear with the terrible revelations about his dead wife that Ellen killed herself in revenge, and provide Ruth's relief. Richard faces a two-year prison sentence for his complicity in Ellen's crimes. Nevertheless, Ellen's last plan to prevent the love between Richard and Ruth from getting out of the grave fails: When Richard returns to "Back of the Moon", Ruth Berent awaits him at the landing stage.

background

History of origin

The film is based on the 1944 novel Leave her to Heaven (Eng. Title: Get the sky ) by the American writer Ben Ames Williams. Williams took the title from a line from William Shakespeare's Hamlet .

Darryl F. Zanuck , Vice President of Twentieth Century Fox, acquired the film rights on the recommendation of Joseph L. Mankiewicz , Otto Preminger and John M. Stahl. The Russian- American screenwriter Jo Swerling adapted the material for the screen, Stahl was commissioned to direct. Gene Tierney , Cornel Wilde , Jeanne Crain and Vincent Price were hired for the leading roles . Tierney and Price had already worked together at Otto Preminger's Laura a year earlier .

The outdoor shots were taken in Monterey ( California ), Granite Dells and Sedona ( Arizona ) as well as in Maine, New Mexico and Wyoming . The famous boat scene in which Ellen is responsible for the death of her brother-in-law was shot in Bass Lake, California . The interior shots were shot in Fox Studios.

Film start

Mortal sin began in New York City on December 25, 1945 and in Los Angeles on December 28 . One of the film slogans described mortal sin as "The sum total of all human emotion!" (German: "The total sum of all human emotions!") The work, located between melodrama and psychological thriller , was positively received by the US audience and developed into that by then most profitable film the Fox. The film received mixed reviews from the critics. Above all, the visual aspects of the film were praised.

The film opened in the Federal Republic of Germany on November 24, 1950.

analysis

Although mortal sin has neither the expressionist black and white images nor the urban setting that usually characterize a film noir, it is consistently classified as such by film historians such as Silver / Ward, Foster Hirsch and James Naremore because of the theme of the woman murdering out of obsessive love.

In the Reclam volume for “Classical Hollywood”, Johannes Binotto analyzes the film as a genre bastard that oscillates between film noir and melodrama: “Film noir has never been so colorful, never has a melodrama as dark as here.” The author particularly emphasizes the alienation effects achieved by color: “In his many outdoor shots, Stahl and his cameraman Leon Shamroy paint familiar nature with chemical colors and thus achieve fascinating alienation effects: something is wrong here, the idyll is toxic. The viewer sees it in the pictures long before the plot confirms it. "

synchronization

The German dubbed version was produced in a shortened version in 1950 at Ultra Film Synchron GmbH under the direction of Alfred Vohrer . Decades later, the missing scenes were also dubbed for television broadcasts.

role actor German Dubbing voice
Ellen Berent Harland Gene Tierney Eva Vaitl , new scenes: Arianne Borbach
Richard Harland Cornel Wilde Hans Nielsen
Ruth Berent Jeanne Crain Erika Georgi
Prosecutor Russell Quinton Vincent Price Peter Pasetti
Mrs. Berent Mary Philips Eva Eras , new scenes: Karin Buchholz
Glen Robie, lawyer Ray Collins Walter Holten
Dr. Saunders, family doctor Gene Lockhart New scenes: Bodo Wolf

Reviews

When it was published, Mortal Sin was recorded in parts. Bosley Crowther in The New York Times was critical: “No more than a piece of cheap fiction pimped up with technicolor and expensive sets. [...] the entire plot - especially the climax in the courtroom - is arbitrary and artificial. Fräulein Tierney's capricious acting performance […] is consistently one-dimensional […] Only the equipment is fascinating, sophisticated and rich in detail. ”The Variety magazine was a little friendlier:“ The lush Technicolor framework and a highly cash-rich story give mortal sin a weight that it does otherwise might not have had. [...] the jealousy topic has emotional power, but is not conveyed as convincingly by the main actors as more capable actors would have been able to. ”The handbook of Catholic film criticism wrote in Germany in 1963:“ Not just the title, but also the sweetish design of the film annoyed. "

In recent decades, however, the film has received increasing popularity, with Rotten Tomatoes 19 of the 20 reviews being good. Lou Lumenick of the New York Post wrote that director Stahl was on par with Douglas Sirk as a master of melodrama: the technicolor colors, Stahl's use of space and the representations turned mortal sin into a lively film noir. Martin Scorsese rates it as one of his favorite films. The lexicon “Films on TV” also wrote in a positive mood: “A radical film about the gender war, filled with lust and greed, Greek tragedy as a Hollywood murder melodrama.” (Rating: 2½ stars = above average). The lexicon of international film remained critical: “Old-fashioned melodrama that is drowned in boundless pathos. Attractive alone: ​​the luxurious colors from Technicolor. "

Awards

Mortal sin was at the award ceremony of the Academy Awards in 1946 for four Oscars nominations, including Gene Tierney as Best Actress . The film was awarded for Leon Shamroy's camera work. Tierney had to admit defeat to Joan Crawford , who was awarded for Michael Curtiz 'film noir As long as a heart beats .

Oscar 1946

Nominated in the categories

Library of Congress

Aftermath

In 1988, the material was filmed again by Christian I. Nyby II under the title A fatal affair (Original title: Too Good to Be True ) for US television. The 120 minute remake, starring Loni Anderson as Ellen Berent, Patrick Duffy as Richard Harland, and Glynnis O'Connor as Ruth Berent, aired on November 14, 1988. However, the adaptation by screenwriter Timothy Bradshaw could not build on the great success of the original.

Martin Scorsese presented mortal sin in longer excerpts in his 1995 TV documentary A Personal Journey Through American Movies .

media

DVD release

In contrast to the sparsely featured European DVD version (2004), the US counterpart features audio commentary by actor Darryl Hickman (Danny Harland) and film critic Richard Schickel . While Hickman reports, among other things, how badly he was treated by Gene Tierney and director John M. Stahl, Schickel reveals background information about the film. Additional bonus material shows footage of the premiere of Mortal Sin and the Academy Award ceremony in 1946.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Rudy Behlmer (Ed.): Memo from Darryl F. Zanuck: The Golden Years at Twentieth Century-Fox. Grove Press, New York 1993, pp. 80-81.
  2. ^ Mortal Sin in the Internet Movie Database .
  3. ^ A b "Plainly a piece of cheap fiction done up in Technicolor and expensive sets. [...] the whole plot — especially a court-room climax — is arbitrary, artificial and mane. Miss Tierney's petulant performance […] is strictly one-dimensional, in the manner of a dot on an I. […] Only the sets are intriguing, being elaborate and gadgety. ”- Review in The New York Times of November 26, 1945 , accessed December 14, 2012.
  4. Jump up ↑ Mortal Sin on Turner Classic Movies, accessed December 15, 2012.
  5. ↑ Stephen Rebello, Richard Allen: Reel Art. Great Posters from the Golden Age of the Silver Screen. Abbeville Press, New York 1988, p. 254.
  6. ↑ a b Mortal Sin in the Lexicon of International FilmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used .
  7. ↑ Alain Silver, Elizabeth Ward (Ed.): Film Noir. An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style, Third Edition. Overlook / Duckworth, New York / Woodstock / London 1992, ISBN 978-0-87951-479-2 ; Foster Hirsch: The Dark Side of the Screen: Film Noir. Da Capo Press, New York 2001, ISBN 0-306-81039-5 ; James Naremore: More than Night: Film Noir in Its Contexts. University of California Press, Berkeley / Los Angeles / London 1998, ISBN 0-520-21294-0 .
  8. ↑ Johannes Binotto : Mortal Sin. Leave Her to Heaven in: N. Grob, E. Bronfen (eds.): Style epochs of film: Classical Hollywood. Stuttgart: Reclam 2013, pp. 285-291.
  9. ^ "Sumptuous Technicolor mounting and a highly exploitable story lend considerable importance to Leave Her to Heaven that it might not have had otherwise. Script based on Ben Ames Williams' bestseller has emotional power in the jealousy theme but it hasn't been as forcefully interpreted by the leads as it could have been in more histrionically capable hands. "- Review in Variety from 1945 (without exact date) , accessed December 14, 2012.
  10. ↑ 6000 films. Critical notes from the cinema years 1945 to 1958. Handbook V of the Catholic film criticism. 3rd edition, Verlag Haus Altenberg, Düsseldorf 1963, p. 435.
  11. ↑ Leave Her to Heaven (Rotten Tomatoes). Accessed February 14, 2018 (English).
  12. ↑ VIVID NOIR CLASSIC MAKES A COMEBACK . In: New York Post . March 6, 2009 ( nypost.com [accessed February 14, 2018]).
  13. ^ Martin Scorsese: Scorsese Introducing Leave Her to Heaven. October 20, 2007, accessed February 14, 2018 .
  14. ^ Adolf Heinzlmeier and Berndt Schulz in Lexicon "Films on TV" (extended new edition). Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-89136-392-3 , p. 827.