Leave Her to Heaven is a 1945 American film directed by John M. Stahl and starring Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, and Vincent Price.

"[2][3] While traveling by train in New Mexico, novelist Richard Harland meets Ellen Berent, a beautiful socialite from Boston.

When Richard visits a dying Ellen on her deathbed, she requests in his confidence that she be cremated, and that he scatter her ashes where she spread her father's in New Mexico, to which he agrees.

Ruth is ultimately acquitted, but he is sentenced to two years imprisonment as an accessory in Danny's death, as he withheld his knowledge of Ellen's actions.

The film features a number of allusions to classical Greek mythology, largely the protagonist, Ellen Berent's exhibition of an Electra complex, displaying an obsession with her deceased father.

[5] This allusion is supported by film noir scholar Imogen Sara Smith, who notes that Ellen is frequently associated with water and shown swimming, "like a mermaid, cold-blooded and alien, preying on a hapless human male.

Scholar Emanuel Levy notes that the film embodies both "conventions of the noir and psychological melodrama," blurring the distinction and resulting in a unique, one-of-a-kind work.

[8] Over the course of the film, Ellen reveals her possessiveness in increasingly violent and destructive ways, rendering her, in Doane's words, "the epitome of evil.

In May 1944, Twentieth Century Fox executive Darryl F. Zanuck purchased the rights to Ben Ames Williams then-unpublished novel, Leave Her to Heaven, planning a screen adaptation.

"[4] In November 1944, the Production Code Administration (PCA) approved Jo Swerling's screenplay adaptation of the novel, though they strongly encouraged the studio to minimize the depiction of Ellen inducing her own miscarriage.

[11] In their response, the PCA noted: "It will be absolutely essential to remove any flavor... that Ellen plans to murder the unborn child merely because she is misshapen.

"[11] A subsequent draft submitted to the PCA in February 1945 was disapproved as it overtly implied that Richard and Ellen had engaged in an illicit sexual affair before their marriage.

[11] Producer Zanuck offered the leading role of Ellen Berent to Gene Tierney, based on her performance in Twentieth Century Fox's film noir Laura (1944).

[11] The desert sequences that take place in New Mexico were filmed in several locations in Arizona, including Sedona, Flagstaff, and the Granite Dells north of Prescott.

[1] The staff at Variety gave the film a positive review, writing "Sumptuous Technicolor mounting and a highly exploitable story lend considerable importance to Leave Her to Heaven that it might not have had otherwise...Tierney and Wilde use their personalities in interpreting their dramatic assignments.

The consensus summarizes: "Leave Her to Heaven suffers from a surfeit of unlikable characters, but the solid cast – led by an outstanding Gene Tierney – makes it hard to turn away.

"[7] In 2018, it was selected for the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

[23] Portions of the film are seen in the M*A*S*H season three episode "House Arrest", particularly the scene in which Tierney and Wilde share a passionate kiss, which causes Hawkeye to quip, "If he straightens out that overbite, I'll kill him."