"Possessed" was included among TCM's "Summer of Darkness" series celebrating film noir, but it really doesn't belong to that genre. It's instead one of those rather tiresome "women's pictures" from the 1940s and 50s, melodramas that usually had some talented actress swooning over some leading man or other. In this one, it's Joan Crawford so obsessed with lover Van Heflin that she literally goes crazy when he breaks off their affair and she instead marries dutiful but dull Raymond Massey. Crawford is much more fun when she's taking charge, not weeping and wailing, and though she tries her best, she can't make much of this thankless character or director Curtis Bernhardt's utter lack of recognizable style.
Still, she managed to somehow snag an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her performance.
Grade: C
Still, she managed to somehow snag an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her performance.
Grade: C