I say that if a color movie would undoubtedly qualify as film noir if it had been filmed in black-and-white, then it's film noir.
Only one other color film that I'm aware of—Niagara (1953), with Joseph Cotten and Marilyn Monroe—is routinely included in lists of noir films. Some critics and scholars even include Vertigo (1958).
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Gene Tierney plays so far against type in Leave Her to Heaven that audiences must have wondered where this actress had been for five years. She always played a beautiful, captivating … someone. [SPOILER ALERT!] In this film she plays Ellen Berent, a beautiful, captivating psychopath and child-murderer. In an American film in 1945, who kills a kid? The scene in which she commits this heinous act is shocking. You knew Ellen was bad. But you didn't know she was that bad. [END SPOILER ALERT!]
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If you say that Gene Tierney was the most beautiful woman of all time in the movies, I would not argue the point. My pick would be Hedy Lamarr. But Tierney would surely be one of the top five or six. (I would nominate her, Hedy Lamarr, Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor, Norma Shearer, and Grace Kelly.) Tierney was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1920. In 1940 she played the leading female role in the Broadway production of The Male Animal. Two weeks after its opening, Darryl F. Zanuck, studio boss at 20th Century Fox, was in the audience. He was so taken by Tierney's beauty and physical presence that he told his assistant to note her name. Later that night he went to the Stork Club and saw a beautiful woman dancing. Zanuck told his assistant, "Forget that girl from the play. See if you can sign that one." The woman was Gene Tierney.
In her early films she worked with some of Hollywood's best directors: Fritz Lang (her screen debut in The Return of Frank James [1940]), John Ford (Tobacco Road [1941]), Henry Hathaway (Sundown [1941], China Girl [1942]), Josef von Sternberg (The Shanghai Gesture [1941]), Rouben Mamoulian (Rings on Her Fingers [1942]), and Ernst Lubitsch (Heaven Can Wait [1943]). From Belle Starr (1941), her fourth film, to the mid-1950s when she all but retired from Hollywood, she was the leading lady in all her work.
Her big breakthrough came in 1944 when she played the title role in Laura, directed by Otto Preminger. Like her next film, this was classic film noir. [SPOILER ALERT!] In it, Laura is the victim of a murder. Police detective MacPherson (Dana Andrews) is investigating. Laura's fiance (Vincent Price) and a friend, Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb), are hanging around, making themselves useless. And then, less than halfway into the film, Laura appears, alive and well. Someone had tried and failed to kill her. Who? The investigation continues till its inevitable conclusion. [END SPOILER ALERT!]
After Leave Her to Heaven, Tierney enjoyed success in film after film, starting with The Razor's Edge (1946) with Tyrone Power; followed by The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) with Rex Harrison; and a pair of films directed by Otto Preminger, Whirlpool (1949) and Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950).
Her acting career effectively came to an end in 1953 when she began to descend into severe mental illness. She dropped out of her role in Mogambo (1953), a remake of the pre-Code classic Red Dust (1932). Tierney's mental illness led to numerous hospitalizations over the years and more than thirty electroshock therapies. She died in 1991, 2 weeks before her 71st birthday.
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Leon Shamroy was the Director of Photography on this film, and he won an Oscar for his work. Shamroy has the distinction of sharing the record for most Oscar nominations for cinematography (18, with Charles Lang) and sharing the record for most Oscar wins for cinematography (4, with Joseph Ruttenberg).
His list of credits includes The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939), The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), The Black Swan (1942) (Oscar), Stormy Weather (1943), Wilson (1944) (Oscar), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), State Fair (1945), Leaver Her to Heaven (1945) (Oscar), Forever Amber (1947), Twelve O'clock High (1949), Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), David and Bathsheba (1951), The Robe (1953), There's No Business Like Show Business (1954), Daddy Long Legs (1955), Love Is a Many Splendored Thing (1955), The King and I (1956), South Pacific (1958), North to Alaska (1960), Cleopatra (1963) (Oscar), The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965), and Planet of the Apes (1968).
In 1946 he shot Marilyn Monroe's first Technicolor screen test. In reflecting on this later, he said, "I thought, 'This girl could be another Harlow.' Her natural beauty plus her inferiority complex gave her a look of mystery. I got a cold chill. This girl had something I hadn't seen since silent pictures."
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Screenwriter Jo Swerling was one of the greatest in movie history. He was also one of the most overlooked and underappreciated screenwriters of all time. His credits include Platinum Blonde (1931), Lady by Choice (1934), The Westerner (1940), Blood and Sand (1941), The Pride of the Yankees (1942), Lifeboat (1944), Leave Her to Heaven (1945), It's a Wonderful Life (1946) (additional scenes), and Guys and Dolls (1955) (adaptation). He was nominated for one Oscar, The Pride of the Yankees (along with co-writer Herman J. Mankiewicz).
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Leave Her to Heaven was the highest-grossing film of the 1940s for 20th Century Fox.
