Happy Valentine’s Day everybody!
In honor of VD I chose the Lana Turner potboiler By Love Possessed (1961). First off, what a great title! I suppose if you wanted to get grammatical about it Possessed By Love makes more sense, but doesn’t it sound a million times better to be By Love… POSSESSED.
Though it’s not as scandalous as Peyton Place (1957) or as glitzy/high camp as Portrait in Black (1960) or Madame X (1966), By Love Possessed still has lots of things going for it, mainly it’s star Lana Turner who plays a wife who must look outside her marriage for emotional and physical fulfillment. The rest of the cast is great (Efrem Zimbalist Jj. and Susan Kohner among others) and the plot is soapy enough to hold interest.
Though it is not available on DVD, By Love Possessed can be watched via streaming download on Netflix using their Watch Instantly feature. I’ve become enamored by this feature lately since it has tons of obscure (as well as popular) stuff that will never see the light of day on DVD or on TCM.
For my full synopsis and review click here.
Gotta love Lana’s fabulous melodramas of the ’50s and ’60s – and it is a great title!