There are movies that are better than the story they are based on. I think this is the case here, thanks to a good director, I suppose. I read several books about German émigré directors in Hollywood. In those accounts Curtis Bernhardt for some reason is right up there with more famous people like Fritz Lang and Robert Siodmak. Possessed gave me an idea why this is so. Bernhardt shot a stylish, dark movie that is technically of the highest quality. Furthermore he got great performances out of Crawford, Heflin and Brooks. For once Joan Crawford is not quite in the center but part of a triangle, and the mise en scene beautifully takes account of that; her usual overacting is generally held in check by the performances of Heflin, Brooks and, to a lesser extent, of reliable character actor Raymond Massey.<br /><br />I would not be surprised had Van Heflin ranked this performance one of the best in his career. At first sight he seems an odd choice for this basically urbane character, but he acquits himself very well indeed and gives him a multi-layered personality. And it is a really interesting character, probably one of the most interesting in the noir cycle. Cultured (plays Schumann on the piano), suave but also a rugged individual in the best sense of the word (an engineer who invents a new girder and is sent to remote Canada to get things going). Crawford's character has a psychotic fixation on him. He deals with that in a manner I would call simply decent - well, maybe with a shot of cynicism. (It's also somewhat surprising how tall that actor is, he really towers over Crawford) Detached and calm  but underneath insecure and aimless -, he tries to reason with the woman he'd rather not like to meet again and who is becoming a living nightmare for him. At the same time he conveys the insight, that this business is decidedly too big for him to handle. It really looks like fate comes to him.<br /><br />Geraldine Brooks plays the Crawford character's stepdaughter and rival. The relationship between the two women undergoes several sharp changes during the movie which I find entirely convincing. They hate each other in the beginning, become friends later and are estranged again. With the innocence of her young character Brooks brings some specks of light in this basically dark movie that is badly needed.<br /><br />The term schizophrenia also plays a big role in Possessed. Very early in the movie the Crafword character's state is diagnosed as such. She is aimlessly wandering the streets of Los Angeles in a confused state and is duly delivered to a hospital (great POV sequence as the patient is rolled along the corridors). The medics comment freely about the schizos" that are coming in in large numbers. From the hospital bed the story is told in long flashback sequences. It's like a confession, with the psychiatrist in the role of the priest. The movie also ends with Crafword prostrate and desperate in an aseptic cell of an institution. As unlikely as it may sound; it is meant to be a happy ending! Her mental state is presented as an illness that can be cured like a physical ailment, once it is properly detected, and the heroine is just about to be sent on the road to a guaranteed recovery. I guess in the period Possessed was made this could be nothing but electronic shock treatment. Those were the days of almost unlimited trust in progress and science.