Spoilers Below
Hamlet once said he had to be cruel only to be kind. I couldn't help but think of this while watching William's Wyler excellent The Heiress (1949), one of the best examples of classic Hollywood elegance and emotional intensity. "Hollywood" can often be a negative descriptor for movies but classic Hollywood gave us plenty of stellar films that are amongst the best films ever made in America. But back to what I was saying about Hamlet. I couldn't help but think of what Hamlet said because it matches the mentality of Dr. Austin Sloper, a wealthy doctor who believes the penniless suitor (Montgomery Clift) courting his wallflower daughter Catherine (Olivia de Havilland) is a a fortune hunter, only after her inheritance, believing she doesn't possess any qualities a man would be interested in. He wants to protect his fortune but in his own way he's also protecting his daughter from what the believes is inevitable heartbreak. He tells her many girls are prettier and cleverer, that her money is her only virtue. And perhaps he's right (ignoring the fact de Havilland was a beautiful and glamorous movie star in real life), but we also sympathize with Catherine, wanting to earn her father's respect and admiration, and grow beyond what she is. The Heiress is largely her journey, one that ends in what the audience can decide is either triumph or tragedy.
The film's screenplay, by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, is adapted from their play based on Henry James' novel Washington Square. The script is a masterclass of emotional suspense, knowing that Catherine will reach her limits and finally push back against the men in her life. We feel deeply for Catherine because De Havilland shows us a woman so willing to be loved and swept off her feet. She's naïve but Clift's sensitivity and sincerity as Morris Townsend presents us with the possibility of genuine love for her. We want to believe he's of noble heart, that there could be a happily ever after for Catherine.
Catherine wants to prove her father wrong an plans to elope with Morris. She tells tells Morris she will be disinherited and when he supposed to pick her up to get married, he doesn't show. This is the turning point of the film where Catherine becomes hardened. But here's the interesting part- she blames Sloper. She tells him that even if Morris was only interested in her money she still could've bought a husband that pretended to love her, something Sloper couldn't do. Sloper could never pretend but only criticize Catherine for her failings. When he learns she's not going to marry Morris he says he's proud of her. And we're happy that Sloper has finally shown admiration for his daughter and it's cathartic that she finally stands up to him. But it's also awful that her relationship with her father is never reconciled, that she breaks his heart.
It'd easy for Sloper to come across as a completely heartless man but the film provides him, like Morris, with genuine nuance. We learn that Sloper can't help but compare his daughter to his deceased wife, who was glamorous and witty, and all those things. The implication is the mother dies in child-birth, with Catherine bearing the unfair bitterness Sloper has towards her for not being exactly like her mother. But this plot point does humanize him, gives him a past and sense that he once had human warmth, a warmth that became a veneer of iciness after his wife died. Richardson was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his performance and I think he should've won over Dean Jagger for Twelve O'Clock High.
Years after Sloper dies Morris returns, telling Catherine he only left so she wouldn't lose her inheritance. She agrees to marry Morris. He goes off to make arrangements. But she leaves him outside, banging on the door when he comes back. It'd be easy to cast a slicker more polished kind of actor, to get across that Morris is an opportunist but with Clift the answer isn't easy. The truth may be that he did love Catherine even if he was also interested in her money. I wrote about this before but Clift deserves just as much credit as Marlon Brando for bringing a new kind of raw naturalism to the screen. "Method Acting" gets a bad rap but I think early on it was valid and valuable way to find a more emotionally realistic way of acting. You always hear about actors being able to act with their eyes. Clift's eyes are deep reservoirs of emotion, and he feels he's going to break at certain instances when you watch him in a given film. His voice also often seems to shake slightly. There's so tenderness to Clift as an actor that the ending isn't a easy triumph. But maybe that's the point, there's no easy triumph in life.'
I avoided talking about De Havilland's performance because I wanted to save it for last. De Havilland ended up winning her second Best Actress Oscar for The Heiress (1946's To Each His Own was her first win). She's miraculous here, simultaneously effortlessly and painfully showing us Catherine hardening from naïve girl to more cunning ruthless older woman. Her final walk up the stairs is one of Hollywood's great endings, in a history of great endings.
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