The Heiress (1948)
(William Wyler, US 1949, 115 min., 35mm)
Olivia de Havilland earned her second Academy Award in four years for her portrayal of Catherine Sloper, the heiress of the title. Catherine cannot live up to her dead mother in her father’s eyes. Despite this, she longs for love and seems to have found it when she meets the poor Morris Townsend (Montgomery Clift) at a party. Catherine’s father (Ralph Richardson) believes that Morris is only after her money, but her aunt (Miriam Hopkins) thinks that a love match could be made. Subtle psychological manipulation and gamesmanship are carried out in detailed drawing rooms and carriages of mid-nineteenth-century New York City. The first film Jack Garner introduced at the Dryden back in 1998, The Heiress is another in a line of exquisitely rendered historical dramas from director William Wyler (Jezebel, Wuthering Heights, Carrie). At that screening, Catherine Wyler, the director’s daughter, was present; she would return to Rochester to act as the founding Artistic Director of the High Falls Film Festival.