The Heiress ***** (1949, Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift, Ralph Richardson) – Classic Movie Review 2,446

William Wyler’s elegant 1949 film of Henry James’s 1880 novel Washington Square, set in 19th century New York, is supremely satisfying. The Heiress got great reviews and won four Oscars, with Olivia de Havilland taking her second Best Actress Oscar. 

Director William Wyler’s elegant 1949 movie version of Henry James’s 1880 novel Washington Square, set in 19th century New York, is supremely satisfying. The Heiress got great reviews and won four Academy Awards, with Olivia de Havilland taking her second Best Actress Oscar. It has a fine screenplay written by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, adapted from their 1947 play version of the book, The Heiress.

Olivia de Havilland won her second Best Actress Oscar as Catherine Sloper, a naïve, shy, plain and awkward young woman dominated by her horrible, emotionally abusive father Dr Austin Sloper (Ralph Richardson). Montgomery Clift is also on form as Morris Townsend, the dashing and handsome young fortune-hunter Catherine falls in love with and falls prey to.

But, impressive though De Havilland and Clift both are, it’s a chillingly restrained Richardson who very nearly more or less acts everybody off the screen here. Richardson is reprising the role he originated in the London production of the play. He was robbed in not winning his nominated Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. This great British actor never won an Oscar, indeed he was only ever once nominated, and posthumously, as Best Supporting Actor in Greystoke.

The film received a leading eight nominations at the 22nd Academy Awards, including for the Best Picture, and won four awards, more than any other film nominated that year, for Best Actress (Olivia de Havilland), Best Original Score, Best Production Design and Best Costume Design.

Aaron Copland’s music won an Oscar for Best Original Music Score, and there were others for Best Art Direction/ Set Decoration, Black and White (John Meehan, Harry Horner and Emile Kuri) and Best Costume Design, Black and White (Edith Head and Gile Steele).

De Havilland saw The Heiress on Broadway and asked Wyler to direct her in a film adaptation. Paramount paid playwrights Ruth and Augustus Goetz $250,000 for the rights and offered them $10,000 a week to write the screenplay. They were asked to tone down the extent of Morris’s villainy to capitalise on Clift as a romantic star.

The Heiress premiered in Los Angeles and at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on 6 October 1949, and was widely released on 28 December 1949 by Paramount Pictures. Partly because of relatively high production costs, including the unusually high pay to the playwrights, it was a box office failure, grossing $2.3 million on a $2.6 million budget, though a critical and awards success.

De Havilland, July 1, 1916 – July 26, 2020, won her first Best Actress Oscar three years earlier for To Each His Own (1946). She died peacefully in her sleep of natural causes at her home in Paris, aged 104.

It was remade in 1996 as Washington Square, this time based directly on the Henry James novel.

The cast are Olivia de Havilland as Catherine Sloper, Montgomery Clift as Morris Townsend, Ralph Richardson as Dr Austin Sloper, Miriam Hopkins as Lavinia Penniman, Vanessa Brown as Maria, Betty Linley as Mrs Montgomery, Ray Collins as Jefferson Almond, Mona Freeman as Marian Almond, Selena Royle as Elizabeth Almond, Paul Lees as Arthur Townsend, Harry Antrim as Mr Abeel, Russ Conway as Quintus, and David Thursby as Geier.

Running time: 115 minutes.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2.446

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

Director Wyler, with Clift and de Havilland. 

Clift with his friend Elizabeth Taylor at The Heiress premiere.