New Use of Technicolor in Film, Leave Her to Heaven, Directed by John M. Stahl

In the 1940s, the film noir genre grew in popularity and unleashed copious standards for murder mysteries. One very stereotypical feature of film noir is it’s strong shadows cast in on the black and white screen, but for the film Leave Her to Heaven, directed by John M. Stahl and starring Gene Tierney and Cornel Wilde film noir masked a different look when it was made in Technicolor. Released in 1945, the use of Technicolor was still a big budget expenditure by Twentieth Century Fox. Without this distinct black and white element, the film relies on the other features. One writer describes the five features of a film noir as including “an investigative structure, plot devices such as voice-over and flashback, a proliferation of point-of-views, unstable heroines,” (LECTURE) and a distinct visual style emphasizing sexuality of women. Leave Her to Heaven takes stock of many of these, which gives it claim of the genre. Elements of film noir follow and move the narrative structure of the film, while also using costume styles and color to emphasize the extremity of Ellen’s diabolical nature to produce deep connections amidst the narrative and its characters. By doing so, the film generates a sense of ------ which ------- and ------.

The opening scene sets the narrative structure of colorized film noir, in which two men by the water welcome Dick back home, then gossip and reminisce over his trial, ultimately leading into the flashback of the film. The flashback element, one of five features of a film noir depicted by Kaplan in her book “Women in Film Noir,” transports the audience into somewhat of a love story, as we meet Ellen and Dick on the train. This scene especially uses different cinematic techniques to show how Ellen has strong...

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..., applies perfume and fixes up her lipstick, all prior to throwing herself down the stairs. Her visual appearance is very important to her and she makes this clear by preparing herself in the mirror. The camera fixates on Ellen’s feet as she wiggles her toes under the carpet, her bright red toenails “tripping” herself. Ellen’s decision to change her outfit prior to killing her unborn child provides an outlook of the femme fatale in which a woman would just as soon kill you as love you. The image of her body at the end of the stairs, and the angle at which it’s shot, depicts her psychological descent into hell.

Leave Her to Heaven presents a new approach to the genre of film noir by equating the different features in color. The use of color emphasizes the stylized visual component and contributes to the over-the-top manner of Ellen’s psychotic tendencies.