The Heiress (1949)

Director:

William Wyler

Writers:

Augustus Goetz (play)
Augustus Goetz (screenplay)

Release Date:

6 October 1949 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

When a Woman Loves a Man . . . She Doesn't Want to Know the Truth About Him !

Plot:

A young naive woman falls for a handsome young man who her emotionally abusive father suspects is a fortune hunter.

Plot Keywords:

Money | Fortune Hunter | Inheritance | Fortune | 1840s

Awards:

Won 4 Oscars. Another 4 wins & 7 nominations

Cast

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

Runtime:

115 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | French

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

UK:U | West Germany:12 (f) | South Korea:12 | Finland:S | Sweden:Btl

Filming Locations:

Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by MCA ever since.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Morris first asks Kathryn to dance at the party, she is seated with her dance card in her hand. Her fan is hanging from a string around her wrist on the same arm. Cut to a wider shot as Kathryn stands to join Morris, and suddenly her fan is in her hand, and her dance card is hanging from her wrist.

Quotes:

Mrs. Montgomery: I think, Doctor, that you expect too much of people. If you do you'll always be disappointed.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Edith Head: The Paramount Years (2002) (V)

Soundtrack:

Plaisir d'amour (The Joys of Love)

"The Master" in WASHINGTON SQUARE

Because he so identified with England in his last thirty years (and even became a British citizen during World War I) people tend to forget that Henry James was an American - as American as his celebrated psychologist/philosopher brother William (the "good" James Boys, as opposed to their non-relatives Frank and Jesse), and his fellow Gilded Age novelists Sam Clemens/"Mark Twain" and William Dean Howells. His early writings, including "The American", "The Portait Of A Lady", and "The Europeans" were written while he was an American citizen. His later classics, "The Spoils Of Poynton", "What Maisie Knew", "The Ambassadors", "The Golden Bowl", and "The Wings Of The Dove", were written when he resided in England. The novels he wrote through 1897 ("What Maissie Knew" being the last of these) were short and controlled in terms of descriptions. But his final set of novels (beginning with "The Ambassadors")had a more flowery writing, as James struggled to find "le mot juste" in every description. Many like this, but I find it a peculiar failure. It takes him three pages of description in "The Wings Of The Dove" to show Mily Theale is looking down from an Alpine peak to the valley thousands of feet below.

"Washington Square" was written in the late 1870s, and was based on an anecdote James heard about a fortune hunter who tried to move in on one of James' neighbors in Manhattan. The neighbor, when a young woman, was wealthy and and would be wealthier when her father died (she was an only child). The father did not think highly of the daughter's choice of boyfriend, and a war of wills between the two men left the young woman scarred. James took the story and fleshed it out.

One has to recall that while ultimately this is based on James' great novel, the film proper is based on the dramatization by the Goetzs. So there are changes (one of which I will mention later). But the basic confrontation between the father and the suitor remains true. On stage the father was played by Basil Rathbone, and in his memoirs ("In And Out Of Character"), Rathbone makes a case that Dr. Sloper (his role) was not the villain in the novel - it was Sloper who was trying to protect his naive daughter Catherine from the clutches of fortune hunting suitor Morris Townshend. It's a nice argument, and one can believe that Rathbone/Sloper was less villainous than Morris. But his desire to protect Catherine does not prevent his cold and aloof treatment of her - he has little respect for her personality. This is tied to the Doctor's constant mourning of his wife (Catherine's perfect mother). It enables Dr. Sloper to compare and belittle his daughter.

The Goetz play and screenplay show (as does the novel) that the battle of wills between the two men only hurts poor, simple Catherine. There are only two major changes from the novel. First, in the novel Dr. Sloper does not discover how his contempt for his child loses her love. He only sees that Catherine will not see reason about what a loser Morris is. So he does disinherit her (she only has her mother's fortune of $10,000.00 a year, not her father's additional $20,000.00). Secondly, when Morris does return in the end in the novel, years have passed, and he is a querulous fat man. The dramatic high point when Catherine locks the door of the house on Morris is not in the novel.

Olivia De Haviland's performance as Catherine is among her most sympathetic and satisfying ones, as she tries to navigate between two egotists, and manages to avoid a shipwreck that neither would totally disapprove of for their own selfish reasons). Her second Oscar was deserved. Ralph Richardson's Sloper is a curious combination of cultured gentleman, egotist, and caring father, who only realizes what his behavior costs him when he is dying and it is too late. Montgomery Clift's Morris is a clever scoundrel, able to hide his fortune-hunting tricks behind a mask of care and seeming devotion to Catherine. Only when he learns that she has broken with her father does Morris show his true colors - suggesting that a reconciliation may still be possible. Finally there is Miriam Hopkins as Aunt Penniman, a talkative blood relative who does have a sense of reality and romance in her - she does try to make a case with Dr. Sloper that he accept Morris for Catherine's emotional happiness, but Sloper rejects the idea because he distrusts Morris so much. These four performances dominate the film, and make it a wonderful, enriching experience - as only "the Master's" best writings usually are.