By Love Possessed *** (1961, Lana Turner, Jason Robards Jr, Efrem Zimbalist Jr) – Classic Movie Review 8779

‘ALL OF THEM WERE BY LOVE POSSESSED! The bold best-seller that sent a fever through America now fires the screen!’

Westerns and action movie director John Sturges was an odd choice for this lurid 1961 upmarket scandal saga By Love Possessed, based on James Gould Cozzens’s best-seller novel, with the screenplay by Charles Schnee (writing as John Dennis).

This lavish, heady, glitzy soap opera does provide an entertaining diversion, despite, or perhaps because of, its accent on trashy talk (‘I don’t want this ever to end’; ‘Dad, we don’t communicate’; ‘You made me feel like I was an animal before I knew I was one’).

Efrem Zimbalist Jr plays the married Massachusetts attorney Arthur Winner possessed with love for the neurotic but glamorously gowned Marjorie Penrose (Lana Turner), who is married to impotent Julius Penrose (Jason Robards Jr), his law firm partner. Arthur begins an affair with Marjorie, who is possessed with love for him.

It is another good soap opera wallow, but the film’s main saving grace is the polished, precision acting from the fascinating cast, the best among whom are George Hamilton as Arthur (Zimbalist Jr)’s son Warren Winner, Thomas Mitchell his father-in-law Noah Tuttle and Barbara Bel Geddes his estranged wife Clarissa Winner.

Out of the budget of $2,500,000, Turner was paid $300,000 and Zimbalist Jr $200,000.

Also in the cast are Susan Kohner, Thomas Mitchell, Everett Sloane, Yvonne Craig, Jean Willes, Frank Maxwell, Carroll O’Connor and Gilbert Green.

By Love Possessed is directed by John Sturges, runs 116 minutes, is made by The Mirisch Corporation and Seven Arts Productions, is released by United Artists, is written by Charles Schnee (writing as John Dennis), is shot by in colour and widescreen Russell Metty, is produced by Walter Mirisch, and is scored by Elmer Bernstein, with Art Direction by Malcolm Brown, and Turner’s wardrobe designed by Bill Thomas.

It is shot at Columbia/Sunset Gower Studios, 1438 North Gower Street, Hollywood, and at Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8779

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