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May 20, 2019 Web Exclusive By Stephen Danay

The last of the great Golden Age actresses - still kicking as of this writing at the age of 102 - Olivia de Havilland is best remembered for her on and off screen romances with Errol Flynn, and for playing the saintly Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind. Her role as Catherine Sloper in William Wyler’s 1949 film The Heiress - which would win de Havilland her second and final Academy Award for Best Actress - gains some small measure of its power from the audience being familiar with her most iconic performance. Like Melanie, Catherine is a kind-hearted and eager-to-please daughter of a wealthy 19th-century family. But whereas Melanie is admired - or envied, in the case of Scarlett O’Hara - for her seemingly bottomless reservoirs of poise and grace, no one would feel the same way about Catherine. Shy, self-conscious and hopeless at social events, Catherine is considered a spinster despite being in her early thirties, a hopeless case when it comes to landing a husband. When the dashing but financially insolvent Morris Townsend asks for her hand in marriage, it kicks off a war of wills between the strident, seemingly sincere Morris and Catherine’s suspicious father, leaving Catherine’s affections and dreams of love in the crossfire.

Adapted from a 1947 stage play, itself inspired by Henry James’ 1880 novella Washington Square, The Heiress is a gothic romance but feels strongly of a piece with the film noir genre, which was reaching its zenith in the late 1940s. Not so much in its visual style - Wyler’s blacks are not particularly deep and his shooting style is wider and more reserved, as would befit a period drama - but in its soul. Catherine is as hapless as any male noir protagonist, sheltered and eager for love. In place of a femme fatale - and more attractive than most of them - are the lean figure, cleft chin and piercing gaze of Montgomery Clift. Much of the drama of The Heiress hinges on whether or not Morris genuinely loves Catherine or is simply after her substantial inheritance. But much like the fatales of traditional noirs, there’s little question in the audience’s mind that he’s bad news. For all his courtly manners and smoldering stares, Clift’s intense Method energy and very 1950s hairstyle and vocal cadence make him seem otherworldly amid the sets and costumes of a 19th century melodrama. Catherine is wholly captivated by him, but for all her attraction she’s often framed leaning away from him, his looming body language forever entering her personal space, a look in his eyes like he’s going to pick his teeth with her bones.

Morris’s intentions being so clearly sinister would make Catherine seem all the more like a pathetic dupe if it were not for de Havilland’s heartbreakingly sincere and subtle performance. The character’s dowdy physical characteristics - bags under her eyes, unplucked eyebrows, unflattering hairstyle - can only carry a performance so far; de Havilland’s shrinking physical presence, her wide-eyed discomfort, her desperate smiles, all paint a portrait of a woman completely starved for love and with no idea how to cultivate it. The character is made all the more tragic by de Havilland and the writers infusing her with a genuine wit and sense of humor that she constantly buries out of deference to propriety and the overbearing men in her life. Every intelligent, decent person who can’t flirt at a party or make small talk at the office will find a kindred spirit in her.

Despite centering around a doomed romance with a morally questionable love interest, the true tragedy of The Heiress is the way in which those who ostensibly have our best interests at heart can still hurt and hinder us as we attempt to grow. Catherine’s father Austin - a prim, shrewd doctor portrayed in an Academy Award nominated performance by Ralph Richardson - is rightly suspicious of Morris’s intentions toward her daughter. But like Morris, Austin’s motivations are also suspect; does he seek to guard his daughters feelings or the fortune she is set to inherit upon his death? This emotional minefield is further worsened by Austin’s endless comparing of Catherine to her dead mother and his seeing his daughter as a pale imitation of the woman he loved. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Catherine’s aunt Lavinia, played by Miriam Hopkins. While most films would portray a rural pastor’s widow as a stern, disapproving figure, Lavinia is a fun-loving and permissive woman, clearly relishing her return to the social circles that have eluded her since her husband’s death. But while her enthusiasm initially makes her a much-needed cheerleader in Catherine’s corner, it eventually becomes clear that her romantic, leap-of-faith advice is less for Catherine’s benefit and more for allowing Lavinia to live vicariously through her niece as she is romanced by a dashing young man. The third act finds Catherine betrayed by everyone around her, whether maliciously, accidentally or uncertainly. And when she at long last seizes her own agency, she does so only to ensure that her unhappiness continues.

(www.criterion.com/films/28986-the-heiress)