Possessed (1931)

Credits: Director: Clarence Brown Screenplay: Edgar Selwyn (play) and Lenore J. Coffee Film Editor: William LeVanway Art Director: Cedric Gibbons Photography: Oliver T. Marsh

Cast: Marian Martin/Mrs. Moreland: Joan Crawford Mark Whitney: Clark Gable Al Manning: Wallace Ford Wally: Skeets Gallagher Travers: Frank Conroy Vernice: Marjorie White John Driscoll: John Miljan Mother: Clara Blandick

Scenes of Note

• opening shot, as workers leave factory
• Marian watching the train pass by
• Mark Whitney and Wally arguing as Marian listens from the next room
• scenes that indicate passage of time

Terms/Concepts/Figures to Know this Week:

Pre-Code cinema, the Production Code, Joseph Breen, the Hays Office, two stages of censorship, depth staging, long takes, characteristics of the women’s film.

Background on Film

Possessed, like It Happened One Night and Public Enemy, is an example of classic American studio realism, and it is historically interesting because it is an example of the kinds of intimate relationships that films were able to portray before 1934.  Since it was made before the Production Code was being strictly enforced, it serves as a narrative and thematic contrast to the typical woman's film.  Possessed  is a remarkable document in the history of women's cinema.

Other Women’s Films from this Era:

Shopworn; Forbidden; Back Street; Blonde Venus (all 1932).  Female; Christopher Strong; Baby Face (all 1933),  Easy Living (1937), Stella Dallas (1937), Dark Victory (1939),  Now, Voyager (1942),  Mildred Pierce (1945), To Each His Own (1946), Deception (1947), Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), Paid in Full (1950), A Life of Her Own (1950).

Other Pre-Code films of Note:

Dance, Fools, Dance (1931), Red Dust (1932), Grand Hotel (1932), Scarface (1932), I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), The Story of Temple Drake (1933), She Done Him Wrong (1933), King Kong (1933)

Critical Commentary

“The script (Lenore Coffee, based on an Edgar Selwyn play) has some crackling Depression-era repartee about what it takes to be a success in the big world. There's a beautiful sequence near the beginning where Crawford is looking into the windows of a slowly moving train, the people inside representing everything exciting that she wishes for in her own life. As was common for those days, however, the plot descends to a laughably melodramatic level, with the heroine having to sacrifice herself for the good of her man, and suffer torment for it.”—Chris Dashiell

“Brown [the director of Possessed] undermines many film conventions that typically call for back and forth cutting. 1) A dialogue between two people will show just one of the character's faces. Person A will say something in close-up. Person B's voice will say something, off screen, while the camera continues its unbroken gaze on A. Then A will say the next line of dialogue. Throughout, we see a continuous focus on person A. 2) A song performed by Joan Crawford at a party is staged by Brown in one long take. It is not intercut with reaction shots, showing the listeners' expressions. This is very rare. 3) Even when Brown uses angle / reverse angle cutting, he can treat the shots in an unconventional manner. A brief angle / reverse angle sequence in Crawford's kitchen at the beginning ends with a shot of Wallace Ford. So far, so conventional. However, Brown turns this close-up into a tracking shot, moves both Ford and his camera around, and gets Crawford into the frame too, and turns this into a long take group shot of them in the kitchen.”—Chris Dashiell

Discussion Questions:

1.  Look at the Production Code. What elements of Possessed would have violated the Production Code's restrictions?

2.  What is the significance of the scenes Marian sees in the train’s windows?

3.  Are there moments when Marian’s movement seems particularly limited by the set or the way the camera frames her?  When do we see Marian outside (not indoors)? 

4.  Do you see examples of what may be “a new set of representational strategies” that allow Brown to tell a sensational story while only elliptically referring to adultery?  In other words, how does Brown handle a racy subject without upsetting the censors?

5.  How does Brown create sympathy for Marian despite her socially transgressive behavior?  Which narrative events seem calculated to put audiences, even those who might be offended by her behavior, on Marian's side?

6.  Some critics argue that in women’s films “the girl’s desire for represented objects could exacerbate the process of identification with sexually delinquent female characters.” In other words, female spectators would envy the dresses, jewels, and houses of promiscuous characters, thus leading them to promiscuity.  Do you think Marion’s lifestyle could have caused innocent female spectators to seek their own wealthy benefactors?