#974: WYLER, William: The Heiress (1949)
WYLER, William (United States)
The Heiress [1949]
Spine #974
Blu-ray
The Booklet
Eight-panel poster featuring an essay by critic Pamela Hutchinson.
Commentary
None.
Conversation
Between screenwriter Jay Cocks and film critic Farran Smith Nehme.
Program
About the film’s costumes featuring costume collector and historian Larry McQueen.
The Costume Designer
A restored 1950 short film featuring costume designer Edith Head.
Appearance
By actor Olivia de Havilland on a 1986 episode of The Paul Ryan Show.
Excerpts
From a 1973 tribute to director Wyler on The Merv Griffin Show, featuring Wyler, de Havilland, and actors Davis and Pidgeon.
Wyler’s acceptance speech
From the American Film Institute’s 1976 Salute to William Wyler.
Trailer
The Heiress [1949]
Spine #974
Blu-ray
Directed with a keen sense of ambiguity by William Wyler, this film based on a hit stage adaptation of Henry James's Washington Square pivots on a question of motive. When shy, emotionally fragile Catherine Sloper (Olivia de Havilland, in a heart-breaking, Oscar-winning turn), the daughter of a wealthy New York doctor, begins to receive calls from the handsome spendthrift Morris Townsend (Montgomery Clift), she becomes possessed by the promise of romance. Are his smoldering professions of love sincere, as she believes they are? Or is Catherine's calculating father (Ralph Richardson) correct in judging Morris a venal fortune seeker? A graceful drawing-room drama boasting Academy Award-winning costume design by Edith Head, The Heiress is also a piercing character study riven by emotional uncertainty and lacerating cruelty, in a triumph of classic Hollywood filmmaking at its most psychologically nuanced.
115 minutes
Black & White
Monaural
1:37:1 aspect ratio
Monaural
1:37:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2019
Director/Writers
Suggested by the novel Washington Square by Henry James.
Written for the screen by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, from their play The Heiress.
William Wyler was 47 when he directed The Heiress.
The Film
The Film
A
Film Rating (0-60):
60
The ExtrasThe Booklet
Eight-panel poster featuring an essay by critic Pamela Hutchinson.
Commentary
None.
Conversation
Between screenwriter Jay Cocks and film critic Farran Smith Nehme.
Program
About the film’s costumes featuring costume collector and historian Larry McQueen.
The Costume Designer
A restored 1950 short film featuring costume designer Edith Head.
Appearance
By actor Olivia de Havilland on a 1986 episode of The Paul Ryan Show.
Excerpts
From a 1973 tribute to director Wyler on The Merv Griffin Show, featuring Wyler, de Havilland, and actors Davis and Pidgeon.
Wyler’s acceptance speech
From the American Film Institute’s 1976 Salute to William Wyler.
Interview
With actor Richardson filmed in 1981 for the documentary Directed by William Wyler.
With actor Richardson filmed in 1981 for the documentary Directed by William Wyler.
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