|
|
My Easy Marketplace - Possessed
|
List Price: $19.98
Our Price: $64.40
Your Save: $ ( % )
Availability:
Manufacturer: MGM (Warner)
Starring: Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Wallace Ford, Richard 'Skeets' Gallagher, Frank Conroy
Directed By: Clarence Brown
|
Average Customer Rating:  
|
|
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786301978415
Format: NTSC
ISBN: 6301978412
Label: MGM (Warner)
Manufacturer: MGM (Warner)
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: MGM (Warner)
Release Date: 1994-06-30
Running Time: 76
Studio: MGM (Warner)
Theatrical Release Date: 1931-11-21
|
|
|
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very Pleased
Comment: This is exactly what I was looking for -- Was in excellent condition -- Very Fast Shipping --- Thank You !
Customer Rating:
Summary: FATAL ATTRACTION NINETEEN FORTIES STYLE...
Comment: This is a superlative film in which Joan Crawford gives the performance of a lifetime. This 1947 film opens with an disoriented woman (Joan Crawford) wandering the streets of Los Angeles and searching for someone named David. She is ultimately brought to the psychiatric ward of a hospital for evaluation, after she collapses. She is now catatonic.
The film then flashes back to those events that brought her to that state. It turns out that she is Louise Howell. She had an affair with David Sutton (Van Heflin), a man who treated her badly and did not return her love. For him, she was just a fling, while for her, he was more, much more. She smothered him and obsessed over him. This is the beginning of her slow descent into another reality.
Her marriage to a wealthy man (Raymon Massey) sets into motion a series of events that over time cause Louise's already tenuous grip on reality to loosen even more. Louise's obsession with her former lover finally takes her over the edge into the unchartered territory of a paranoid schitzophrenic with most unfortunate consequences for David.
Ms. Crawford's performance of a woman descending into the snakepit of madness is a wonder to behold. One senses her tenuous grip on reality. One feels her face life with trepidation, and her fear and confusion is palpable. This is certainly one of Ms. Crawford's best and most poignant performances. The viewer gets the sense that Ms. Crawford poured her heart and soul into this magnificent performance.
Joan Crawford fans and lovers of classic movies will enjoy this engrossing film.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Joan's early movie hit
Comment: Only an actress who's career lasted FIVE DECADES can play in two pictures, in two different decades with the same TITLE!
The 1931"Possessed" follows the standard Crawford/MGM story...Beautiful girl meets two handsome boys, doesn't know which to choose...tragic love triangle...happy ending...
But this picture is especially memorable because MGM teams Joan with Clark Gable. These two are always magical to watch together. They both always lit up the screen, because anyone could tell that when Gable looked at Crawford he had fire in his eyes.
BTW, in case you're wondering "Possessed" from 1947 is MUCH BETTER with a totally different plot (Joan was nominated for her second Oscar for the 47' "Possessed").
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Do the Right Thing!
Comment: I checked this movie out because it co-starred Clark Gable. However, I have seen a number of early Joan Crawford movies lately and I was favorably impressed with her glamour and talent. That was a pleasant surprize because she was a has-been when I saw her in her later movies. I can't even remember the names of her later axe-murder movies although I vividly recall "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" which demeaned both her and her co-star Bette Davis.
In "Possessed", Crawford plays a small town hick who gets a passing invitation to visit a rich playboy in New York whom she met briefly. She decides to take him up on his invitation despite the protestations of others (including her mother played in a brief appearance by "Auntie Em" Clara Blandick). Well, the offer turns out to have been inspired by champagne and Crawford finds herself too alone in the big city. Things change and the scene turns to that of a successful concubine whose amore has to chose between love and power. The dilemna leads to the fairly powerful conclusion.
I confess that I was a bit mystified by the plot because I had mistaken this movie accidently as her 1947 version of a movie by the same name. I kept waiting for her to start to go nuts and I was much more impressed with what I got instead. This was a delicate subject matter for 1931 and it was interesting to see how the writer and director handled it. Her character acquired the name "Mrs. Moreland" to suggest a widow or divorcee rather than a young maiden. Better to assume that innocence was lost in the sanctity of a prior marriage than in the seduction of a...well, you get the idea. Of course, the audience knows all this but it's interesting to see the lengths that are taken to elevate the morality of an affair. I've seen to many great and greater movies to rate this higher than a "3 star" movie. However, it is certainly worth watching.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Crawford + Gable = Magic
Comment: "Possessed" was the third film pairing Joan Crawford and Clark Gable and my personal favorite of the duo's.
Crawford plays Marian Martin, a young lady who works at a paper box factory but yearns for more than clocking in and out and marrying the staid but faithful Al Manning (Wallace Ford)whose biggest concern seems to be what flavor of ice cream to bring for dessert. After getting off work one afternoon, she meets the intoxicated but wealthy Wally Stuart (Skeets Gallagher)who stokes the fire of change within Marian, causing her to leave for New York and look him up. Once there, she meets his friend Mark Whitney (Gable), a lawyer who has been burned once by an ex-wife and is not interested in going near the flame again. Mark and Marian begin a relationship, with Marian being redubbed "Mrs. Moreland" in order to protect her reputation. (This being the early 1930s, Marian must have an explanation for her fancy apartment and nice things - - saying she is a wealthy divorcee will prevent any speculation).
Things appear to go swimmingly for Mark and Marian for several years, although Marian longs to marry Mark and Mark's friends question why he doesn't marry her. When Mark decides to run for governor and Marian overhears some well-meaning friends telling him that his relationship with Marian could prove to be an embarrassment, and suggest that he terminate the relationship, Marian does the dirty work for him and tells him that she is going to marry Al Manning, who has managed his way out of the paper box factory and into success with construction. Once Marian tells Al about her relationship with Mark, Al is not interested in having "used goods." All ends well, however, when Mark makes it clear that being governor is not as important as being with Marian.
This movie was very daring for its time. Marian, in the beginning, is nothing short of a gold digger, who knows upon coming to New York that she must become the kept woman of a wealthy man to get what she wants. Atypical for movies of the period, she is not punished for her actions, but rewarded with a fabulous wardrobe (by Adrian), an incredible Park Avenue apartment (by Cedric Gibbons) and a decent man who loves and respects her (and looks like Clark Gable!) Indeed, when the movie was released in 1931, some cities would not screen the flick, considering the movie scandalous and unethical and parents were encouraged to leave the kiddies at home, for such adult fare.
Crawford, wonderfully attired in Adrian's stunning creations, looks absolutely stunning. Forget the Warner Brothers Crawford of the late 1940s, with the harsh mouth and almost mannish features. This Crawford was breathtaking, one that simply seduced the camera. She WAS Marian - - and every other working girl out there that paid hard-earned money to see her films. It was no wonder that the shopgirls loved her so much. If Crawford could rise above the paper box factory and snag Gable, while looking so elegantly attired, so too, perhaps, could they.
Gable, while not in his best role, does what he can with a rather one dimensional part. Rather than coming across as a rakish attorney with a kept woman on the side, who wants to have his cake and eat it too, he seems a sincere man who has been hurt once before and wants to do the right thing by everyone.
Gable and Crawford were, at the time, in the midst of their own extramarital affair and at the height of their passionate love for one another and it does show in this film. The love and affection seems genuine, as does the easiness with which they act together.
While their film "Strange Cargo", released in 1940, got better reviews and is generally considered to be their best picture together, this film is my personal favorite and has a certain tenderness that the other films do not.
As an added bonus, watch for Marian's mother in the beginning of the film - - she is played by Clara Blandick who, in 1939, would go on to immortality playing Judy Garland's Auntie Em in "The Wizard of Oz."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
