- Curtis Bernhardt's Possessed is a unique film noir in that its tragic heroine doesn't fit neatly into either of the usual "innocent angel" or "femme fatale" women's noir archetypes. If anything, Louise Howell (Joan Crawford) is a vacillating mixture of both, which makes sense since she's been diagnosed with schizophrenia. When the film opens, Louise is discovered wandering the streets of Los Angeles, searching for somebody named David. After a wonderful point-of-view hospital gurney shot, Louise begins to relate her story in flashback just as quickly as she can remember what happened.
- It turns out that the "David" she's been calling for is David Sutton (Van Heflin), the man Louise once loved. Unfortunately, David's love interests extend solely to pianos and parabolas, and he doesn't hesitate to throw Louise over for the chance to migrate north to work as an engineer. Incidentally, both David and Louise share the same boss, Dean Graham (Raymond Massey), who hired Louise to help care for his sick wife. The delusional Mrs. Graham habitually accuses her devoted husband of infidelity and even begins dragging Louise into the mix. Soon after, Mrs. Graham's body is found drowned off the coast of their lake house, in what Mr. Graham asserts was a case of suicide.
- Now here's where things get interesting. As Louise's flashbacks continue, the audience begins to realize that she's not the most reliable narrator in the world. It's true enough that she and Mr. Graham eventually marry, and that his concerned daughter Carol (Geraldine Brooks) doesn't initially approve. It's also obvious that Louise still harbors feelings for David, whose appearances tend to initiate her psychotic episodes. In the film's best sequence, Louise and Carol attend a classical concert where the pianist plays Schumann, just as David once did. Carol spots David in the audience and invites him over to their box. Thinking that David and Carol are having a secret affair, Louise knocks Carol down a flight of steps and kills her...but not really, since Carol is still alive and well. How much of what Louise has seen can really be believed?
- Like all psychology-heavy films from its era, the diagnoses supplied by various doctors (Stanley Ridges, Moroni Olsen, Erskine Sanford) in Possessed don't exactly inspire confidence in the field. The film's concluding quote is particularly dismaying, as one of the doctors notes that "It was pain that made her this way. Only through greater pain and suffering beyond belief, can she get well again." Yikes! Fortunately, the rest of the film is a fairly interesting journey through a troubled mind, helped considerably by Crawford's simultaneously sympathetic and disturbing portrayal of mental illness. I've never found Van Heflin to be a compelling love interest, but he is admittedly convincing as a man who would explain to a gun-toting woman why she was unlikely to succeed in killing him. Brooks and Massey both deliver strong performances and Bernhardt's direction is surprisingly effective, given that he is not particularly well-known these days.
