The Heiress

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Due to the recent 104th birthday of Dame Olivia De Havilland I decided on this for my weekly classic. De Havilland plays a young woman who falls for a handsome young man who might not be quite what he seems. Add in her emotionally abusive father who slowly changes her acceptance of such things. Good to see Olivia in something other than a supporting role. May she live for a great many years yet, not many left now from Hollywood's golden era. read more

The emotion and conflict between two people in a drawing room can be as exciting as a gun battle, and possibly more exciting,” wrote William Wyler on the release of his film The Heiress in 1949. This tenet is fully borne out in the film, with its bouts of genteel but bruising domestic warfare staged within an elegant Manhattan town house. In fact, Wyler put this philosophy into practice throughout his work, which is synonymous with economical classical Hollywood filmmaking, his often inconspicuous style capable of staging moments of deep emotional resonance—and like Henry James, whose novel... read more