Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Adeel Hail Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

jimjamjonny39 I'm impressed with Joans' performance in this movie as she comes across as a very convincing troubled woman... over a man. The sad thing for the character she plays is she is never in control of her emotions when she's around the man that she is possessed about. When he's not there you'd never know that she has a problem. Did you ever love someone or have them believe that they were in love with you but it wasn't reciprocated? Wouldn't you avoid them as much as possible? Joan was 40 in this and I have to say she looked good, mind you I'm older than that now so... I felt for her, she tried to force something that wasn't there. Her psychosis, whether initialised from birth or created through her reasoning at the time, made it impossible for her to understand and accept to be true.

utgard14 Joan Crawford turns in one of her best performances as a mentally disturbed woman in love with Van Heflin but married to Raymond Massey. She's found wandering the streets at the start of the film. At the hospital, she tells the film's story to doctors through a series of flashbacks. After winning an Oscar for Mildred Pierce, it seems obvious Joan wanted badly to win another. So she followed a formula that is still being followed by actors today. If you want to be recognized by your peers, play someone with an alcohol or drug problem (Humoresque -- check!) or play someone who is mentally ill (Possessed -- check!). Joan did receive an Oscar nomination for this role but didn't win.The rest of the cast is fine. Raymond Massey is solid as her husband but it isn't one of his better roles. Geraldine Brooks is lovely in her film debut. Van Heflin plays the object of Joan's obsession. He's a thoroughly unlikable character. Heflin does fine in the part but I couldn't help wondering if the movie expected me to feel sympathy for this guy or what because he was a jerk and a cradle robber. The film is a little overlong and drags a little in the middle when Joan is acting her most normal. This is not related to Joan's other movie titled Possessed from 1931. That film was a soaper with Clark Gable.

Spikeopath Possessed is directed by Curtis Bernhardt and adapted to screenplay by Silvia Richards and Ranald MacDougall from a story by Rita Weiman. It stars Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raynond Massey and Geraldine Brooks. Music is by Franz Waxman and cinematography by Joseph Valentine.After wandering around the streets of Los Angeles in a daze, Louise Howell (Crawford) collapses in a diner and admitted to hospital. From there, prompted under medication, she begins to reveal a rather sad story...Film begins with quite a kick, a dazed looking Crawford, stripped of make-up, wanders around a ghostly looking Los Angeles uttering the name David. Once she enters the hospital, we switch to flashback mode and the makers unfurl a noir tale of mental illness, oneirism, hopeless love and death. German director Bernhardt (Conflict/High Wall) and his cinematographer Valentine (Shadow of a Doubt/Sleep, My Love) deal in expressionistic methods to enhance the story. Light and shadows often marry up to Louise's fractured state of mind, motif association flits in and out of the plotting and there's some striking imagery used; such as a body dragged from a lake and Louise framed in a rain speckled window.The lines of reality are impressively blurred, ensuring the viewers remain in a state of not ever being sure of what is real. There's a deft disorientation about the production, where fatalism looms large and sadness is all too evident in our troubled femme protagonist. Principal cast performances are of a high standard, with Crawford (Academy Award Nominated) leading the way with one of those wide eyed turns that perfectly treads the thin line between fraught and tender. While laid over the top is a score from Waxman that emphasises the key segments of poor Louise's mental disintegration. But what of the story in itself? The rhyme or reason for such murky melodramatics dressed up neatly in noir clobber?Story is pretty much wrapped around the notion that a romantic obsession sends Louise Howell on the downward spiral. Since we know next to nothing about the relationship between Louise and David Sutton (Heflin), or why Sutton is the sly and antagonistic way he is, it's a big hole in character formation. As is the death of Dean Graham's (Massey) wife, or in fact the sudden shift of Dean Graham becoming husband to one Louise Howell. The film looks terrific on a noir level, and Crawford engrosses greatly from start to finish, but it only seems to exist for these two reasons, all else is on the outer edges of the frame looking in. A shame because there is much to like and be involved with here. 7.5/10

bennyraldak Joan Crawford gives a great and almost hypnotic performance as Louise, 'a woman in trouble'. One of the first films to explore the dark but realistic psychological territory of humanity in a certain way. A film where the inner demons of an individual may be the protagonists of the piece. A concept that subsequently brought such classics as Hitchcock's "Vertigo" ('58), "Psycho" ('60) and "Marnie" ('63), Bunuel's "Belle de jour" ('67) and Bergman's "Persona" ('66). Later these themes and concepts found it's way into the work of filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick, Roman Polanski, Brian De Palma, Andrei Tarkovsky, David Cronenberg and David Lynch. Especially the work of Polanski and Lynch seems to be influenced by Curtis Bernhardt's "Possessed". Films like "Repulsion" ('65), "Mulholland Drive" ('01) and "Inland Empire" ('06) are idiosyncratic variations on the same concept and theme.The film starts out with a woman in a trance-like state, roaming the streets... calling the name 'David'. When she's hospitalized it turns out she's a schizophrenic, struggling with the fate of drowning in insanity. The film explores all kinds of cinematic 'realitybending' and often plays with the line between reality and fantasy. Not to the extend as such filmmakers as Jean Cocteau or Luis Bunuel did prior to this film, but in a more subtle and refined way. Maybe somewhat more Hollywood, but nevertheless very profound and original at the time. This film even reminded me of my own film "Voorbijgangers" ("Travelers"), since this also is a film that explores the darker side of mankind. People struggling with what's real or illusion; struggling with their inner demons...I deeply recommend this film to anyone who enjoys some of the films I mentioned in the above.