Part of Fashion in Film Festival: If Looks Could Kill & See It Big! (April–July, 2012)
Saturday, May 12, 2012, 7:00 p.m.

35mm print restored by the Academy Film Archive and Twentieth Century Fox with funding provided by The Film Foundation.

Dir John M. Stahl. 1945, 105 mins. With Gene Tierney. Costumes by Kay Nelson. Throughout this noirish melodrama, Gene Tierney’s character Ellen Berent Harland presents a mask of impenetrable beauty. Immaculately groomed and coordinated, her style speaks of wealth and exclusivity that is echoed in the cinematography’s luxurious Technicolor, which emphasizes vistas of the American landscape. However, beneath this apparently idyllic façade is a dark, psychological story of obsession and violence—Ellen’s repressed emotions are expressed through the dramatic mise-en-scène and costume.

Free with Museum admission.