Trailer
Plot summary
Louise Howell is found wandering Los Angeles, saying little more than the name David. She is admitted to a psychiatric ward in a catatonic state, and a doctor questions her until she begins to recount her past. She starts with David Sutton, who played piano for her but did not share her feelings and later ended their relationship. Louise now works as a nurse at the lakeside home of Dean Graham, caring for his invalid wife, Pauline. Pauline is hostile and suspects Louise of being too close to her husband, so Louise wants to leave.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Possessed (1947)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- While making the film, director Curtis Bernhardt kept accidentally calling Joan Crawford "Bette", having just come off A Stolen Life, in which he had directed Bette Davis.
- Joan Crawford tried and failed to get Warner Bros. Pictures to rename the film The Secret, since she had already starred in a film of the same title, Possessed, with Clark Gable as her leading man, 16 years earlier.
- Joan Crawford prepared to play Louise Howell by visiting mental wards and talking to psychiatrists, and said the part was the most difficult she ever played.
- Franz Waxman's score leans heavily on a piano piece by Robert Schumann, the "Chopin" movement from Carnaval Op. 9, which David plays on screen early in the film and which returns throughout to underscore Louise's obsession.
