Possessed is a 1947 American psychological drama directed by Curtis Bernhardt, starring Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, and Raymond Massey in a tale about an unstable woman's obsession with her ex-lover.

Admitted to a hospital's psychiatric ward in a catatonic stupor, and interrogated by a doctor, she calls herself Louise Howell, and recounts her life in intermittent spurts, starting with her memory of her lover David Sutton playing Schumann for her, she saying, "I want to have a monopoly on you."

At the wedding, the uninvited David arrives late, and speaks to the crying Carol, who says she asked him for marriage at 11 years of age, which he remembers.

Back at their regular home, Louise, happy to be free of Pauline's ghost, wants to go dancing; but she and Dean see David and Carol at the nightclub.

He also says her tortured mind and delusion that she helped Pauline kill herself, made her present condition almost inevitable, and that if he had seen her sooner, her problems could have been averted.

Crawford spent time visiting mental wards and talking to psychiatrists to prepare for her role,[2] and said the part was the most difficult she ever played.

[2] The musical score is by Franz Waxman, and makes extensive use of a piano piece by Robert Schumann, the "Chopin" movement from Carnaval Op.

[1] Herman Schoenfeld of Variety positively wrote that Joan Crawford "cops all thesping honors in this production with a virtuoso performance as a frustrated woman ridden into madness by a guilt-obsessed mind.

Actress has a self-assurance that permits her to completely dominate the screen even vis-a-vis such accomplished players as Van Heflin and Raymond Massey."

Film vacillates between being a cold clinical analysis of a mental crackup and a highly surcharged melodramatic vehicle for Crawford's histrionics.

Though Joan has a powerful presence in this movie, she played her mad role in a too cold and campy way to be thought of as a sympathetic figure.

All the psychological treatment therapy sounded like psycho-babble and Joan's acting was overstuffed, though some of her morbid imaginations were gripping and held my attention.

Too heavy with German stimmung it still is fun to watch the melodramatics play out in this tale of overbearing love, painful rejection, paranoia and murder.

"[6] Film historian Bob Porfirio notes, "By developing the plot from the point-of-view of a neurotic and skillfully using flashback and fantasy scenes in a straightforward manner, the distinction between reality and Louise's imagination is blurred.