#1 in my ranking of William Wyler’s filmography.
William Wyler, after a couple of films of timely nature about WWII, returns to what could be considered is milieu: adaptations of respected stage plays with strong female central characters. And he comes back swinging and making one of the absolute best of these things. Taking the play by Augustus and Ruth Goetz, which itself is based on Washington Square by Henry James, and translating it perfectly to the film medium, Wyler elevated the work of his central cast while once again expertly framing everything in his camera to great effect.
Catherine Sloper (Olivia de Havilland) is the unremarkable daughter of the wealthy Doctor Austin Sloper (Ralph Richardson). She has no remarkable talents or features, and she’s not terribly pretty on top of being painfully shy. She cannot make herself known in society as anything other than the awkward wealthy girl in the corner of every party, no matter the efforts of her father or her Aunt Lavinia (Miriam Hopkins). Dr. Sloper is acutely aware of the failings of his daughter, comparing her unfailingly and uncharitably to the girl’s mother who died years previously, and yet he still wants the best for her. He does his best to hide his disappointment in her to her face while pushing her out to find some kind of match in a world where she is uncomfortable.
Dr. Sloper gets his wish when Catherine attracts the attention of Morris Townsend (Montgomery Clift), and he quickly regrets getting what he wished for. Morris is an attractive and charming young man who has no business being interested in someone as dull and plain as Catherine, at least in Dr. Sloper’s eyes. Add onto everything else that Morris has a history of profligacy with a previous inheritance he received and spent all of while galivanting around Europe, only to arrive on the edges of New York City society, staying for free at the house of his sister and tutoring her children, while suddenly pursuing the hand of a girl with no other achievements than being on the path towards a great inheritance of $30,000 a year, $10,000 of which she already has from the death of her mother, the remainder due upon the death of her father, a fact of which her father is keenly aware.
The dramatic core of the film is the tension between the three main characters as Catherine tries to figure out the true motives of Morris, her beloved. She refuses to believe anything other than the best of him, that he loves her for her qualities and not her money, but Dr. Sloper is dead-set on making her see Morris as he sees the young man. It goes so far that Dr. Sloper gives up on opening Catherine’s eyes and hopes to establish distance between the two, bringing Catherine with him on a European vacation of six months. What, I think, gives this tug of war between the three characters so much purchase is that Clift’s performance as Morris Townsend is actually quite dedicated to the idea that he’s genuine in his affections for Catherine. It provides a nice wrinkle to the story and how the audience perceives the characters that we may begin to think that Morris is more than just a gold-digger. It’s a conscious effort by Clift and Wyler to get the audience on Catherine’s side and against Dr. Sloper.
That’s vital for the turn later when everything falls apart and Catherine changes. De Havilland gives what is probably the performance of her career, and it’s a surprisingly subtle turn. Her early scenes, really the first two-thirds of the film, show her as a quiet, awkward, and unassuming girl who takes the psychological abuse from her father like a confused child and falls head over heels in love with the penniless but good-looking young man who gives her so much attention. However, when her dreams are dashed, de Havilland’s performance changes as well. It’s a series of subtle little differences going from how she holds herself, improving her posture, to how she speaks with a deeper, firmer voice. Her change is embedded in the solid writing as well with that change being fully earned and hurting the audience through our attachment to Catherine, and also making her hardened state fully empathetic. Her resolution by the end is hard-earned and satisfying, even if there may be a mixture of emotions there’s ultimately a rooting interest for Catherine, even a deeply wounded and changed Catherine, to get the best she can out of her ruined circumstances (well, to an extent, she’s still very rich).
On top of it all is, of course, Wyler’s precise visual framing, lensed by Leo Tover, that uses the intricate set of Dr. Sloper’s house to extreme effect in creating compositions in three-dimensions that help allow for more information on screen at once while also helping to enhance the action on screen. It’s a constant with Wyler, and The Heiress is no exception.
Really, this might be Wyler’s best film. It’s emotionally gripping in a surprisingly complex way. It is helped in no small part by a trio of excellent central performances. It’s very well adapted to cinema from the stage. It’s beautiful and heartbreaking and just all around great.
Rating: 4/4
David Vining, Author 
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