Possessed (Blu-ray)

Academy Award winner Joan Crawford earned another Best Actress nomination for her tour-de-force performance in Possessed (1947) which opens with Crawford portraying a woman found wandering the streets of Los Angeles. Taken to a mental hospital, she weaves a harrowing tale of insanity, murder and the passion by which provides the basis for the film's apt title. Louise Howell's (Crawford) psychiatrist learns that she is a nurse hired to care for a dying woman and that she rekindled a former romance with her patient's neighbor, David Sutton (Van Heflin). But the suicide of her charge and rejection by the man she loves drive Howell to madness - and murder. Or do they? Is Howell's harrowing story true or the misperception of a deranged mind? Is Howell guilty of murder or an innocent victim of something far more sinister? Directed by Curtis Bernhardt, the film features a superb performances from it's impressive cast, all richly underscored by the music of the great Franz Waxman.

Starring: Nana Bryant, Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey, Geraldine Brooks, Stanley Ridges, Monte Blue, Griff Barnett, John Ridgely, Moroni Olsen, Erskine Sanford, Gerald Perreau, Isabel Withers, Lisa Golm, Douglas Kennedy, Don McGuire, Rory Mallinson, Clifton Young, Ralph Dunn, Max Wagner, Dick Bartell, Frank Marlowe, Rose Plumer, Jane Harker, Martha Montgomery, Robert Lowell, Richard Walsh, James Conaty, Creighton Hale, Tristram Coffin, Jacob Gimpel, Nell Craig, Henry Sylvester, Sarah Padden, Wheaton Chambers, Eddie Hart, Philo McCullough, Paul Bradley, Peggy Leon, Jack Mower

Director: Jerry Wald