Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Matho The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

jimjamjonny39 I'm impressed with Joans' performance in this movie as she comes across as a very convincing troubled woman... over a man. The sad thing for the character she plays is she is never in control of her emotions when she's around the man that she is possessed about. When he's not there you'd never know that she has a problem. Did you ever love someone or have them believe that they were in love with you but it wasn't reciprocated? Wouldn't you avoid them as much as possible? Joan was 40 in this and I have to say she looked good, mind you I'm older than that now so... I felt for her, she tried to force something that wasn't there. Her psychosis, whether initialised from birth or created through her reasoning at the time, made it impossible for her to understand and accept to be true.

Alex da Silva ..sang Cypress Hill in the 1990s. That song is clearly the inspiration for this 1947 film starring Joan Crawford (Louise) as a lunatic. She is obsessed with Van Heflin (David) and this obsession transfers itself into the 'possessed' referred to in the film's title. She seems fine. She's not. At first, you may think she's just exhibiting typical woman jealousy, etc. Nope. She goes a step further. Heflin doesn't want to know about her and that is his BIG mistake.The dialogue is realistic, confrontational and amusing and the cast are all good in this film that is, unfortunately, very slow to start. Keep with it and it develops through flashback segments as Crawford lies in a hospital bed. At one point, the film veers into the spooky horror genre and I yelled out at one point when an intercom kept buzzing. There are some clever techniques used and the story does have a few twists in the way it is recounted. I enjoyed it. Schizophrenia is depicted in a much cleverer and clearer manner in this film when compared to Humphrey Bogart having a stab at it in "The Two Mrs Carrolls" from the same year. Crawford is more adept than Bogey.The other Joan Crawford films worth checking out from the 1940s are "Strange Cargo" (1940), "A Woman's Face" (1941) and "Mildred Pierce" (1945).

utgard14 Joan Crawford turns in one of her best performances as a mentally disturbed woman in love with Van Heflin but married to Raymond Massey. She's found wandering the streets at the start of the film. At the hospital, she tells the film's story to doctors through a series of flashbacks. After winning an Oscar for Mildred Pierce, it seems obvious Joan wanted badly to win another. So she followed a formula that is still being followed by actors today. If you want to be recognized by your peers, play someone with an alcohol or drug problem (Humoresque -- check!) or play someone who is mentally ill (Possessed -- check!). Joan did receive an Oscar nomination for this role but didn't win.The rest of the cast is fine. Raymond Massey is solid as her husband but it isn't one of his better roles. Geraldine Brooks is lovely in her film debut. Van Heflin plays the object of Joan's obsession. He's a thoroughly unlikable character. Heflin does fine in the part but I couldn't help wondering if the movie expected me to feel sympathy for this guy or what because he was a jerk and a cradle robber. The film is a little overlong and drags a little in the middle when Joan is acting her most normal. This is not related to Joan's other movie titled Possessed from 1931. That film was a soaper with Clark Gable.

sdave7596 "Possessed" released in 1947, gives Joan Crawford one of her best performances at the height of her popularity at Warner Brothers. Crawford had won an Oscar just the year before for "Mildred Pierce" so she was red-hot when she made this film. Crawford stars as Louise, a seemingly cool, detached nurse who cares for an ill woman (whom we never see) who is married to a wealthy man named Dean (Raymond Massey). Louise has also just been dumped by her lover David (Van Heflin) whom she was very much in love with. Louise becomes infatuated with David, seeming to almost stalk him. On the rebound, she marries Dean (whose wife is now dead), much to the dismay of his adult daughter Carol (Geraldine Brooks). Gradually, Carol and Louise become friends. Louise then almost snaps when she learns Carol and David are seeing one another; her odd behavior becomes even odder, telling lies, imagining she was involved in the death of Dean's first wife, etc. This is where the movie veers off course: Louise confronts David about his relationship with Carol, shoots him, and then ends up wandering the streets and then in the psychiatric ward of a hospital. The film just explains it all away as psychoses and nothing more -- although in the real world of 1947 psychiatry that probably wasn't uncommon. The film is uneven at time, and the script slightly lacking, but the performances are first rate. Van Heflin has one of his better roles as a callous, arrogant playboy, and Geraldine Brooks is fine as Carol. Raymond Massey is his usual reliable self, playing the long-suffering husband role quite well. But make no mistake: this is Joan Crawford's show, and she dominates and fascinates throughout.