Possessed (1931)

Not to be confused with Joan Crawford’s later 1947 film of the same name, this 1931 drama has the Hollywood gloss and glamour you expect from this studio. Joan suffers well and co-star Clark Gable equals Joan in the looks department. Directed by MGM stalwart, Clarence Brown, Joan’s rise from working-class factory girl to New York socialite is fast and furious.

In a time when stars were primarily known for what they did 'on' the screen, Gable and Crawford ignited screens getting their collars and cuffs mussed as no two beautiful, white-hot sexy people had until then on the screen.

It takes time to get the fundamental tale of a potential gold digger (Crawford), but one with a heart of gold, and self-sacrificing to boot, to get off the ground. But once it does, this pre-code dish soars into the stratosphere's of highly-evolved melodrama, guaranteed to hold the attention nearly 100 years after its debut. Really good stuff here. And WAC's new-to-Blu transfer is, again, first-rate.

I hadn’t seen this for quite some time., so it was good to revisit it. I enjoyed it---it’s a solid picture---though it isn’t necessarily one of my favourites out of Crawford’s 1930s output. Here she’s doing her patented “shopgirl makes good” character; she did a lot of films with that theme in the late twenties and throughout the thirties, didn’t she. They certainly were popular with the audience of the time. Still, this isn’t my favourite of those films---there are a couple of others in a similar vein that have more replay value for me.

But holy cow, this new transfer is stunning; the film looks so good. This was a scan from the nitrate negative--- existing negatives from early thirties MGM films are kind of rare, due to the storage facility fire. Spectacular. The quality we’re seeing on this blu-ray is probably even a little better than what 1931 audiences viewed in the cinema.

(And here’s a bit of cinema trivia… I wonder, has any other actor ever appeared in two films with the same title, but totally different plots? Because Crawford also starred in another Possessed, made in the mid-forties. That was an excellent picture; I’ve seen it numerous times. I think she would have gotten an Oscar for that one, if she hadn’t just won for Mildred Pierce.)