Excellent, Without a doubt!!

A lot of fun.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

She was 40 by this movie, and we all know what Hollywood does to 40+ actresses; they hit the eject button. It doesn't help that Lana's figure doesn't look anywhere near the way it's portrayed on the box cover. "Lovely for her age" is not the same as lovely, and this Lana for a long time reminded no one of her Postman Rings Twice zenith. She managed to hold on for 5 more films before allowing Hollywood to wash her out.As bloodless as the coupling of Zimbalist and Turner is, it's exceeded by the dull essaying of a role by George Hamilton (sans tan). It takes Yvonne Craig to crank things up a bit, over halfway thru the movie. But then we're dragged back into Zimbalist and Turner moping around over "lost love". This is one of those proper New England movies of the era, and some of them are quite good. This one is quite concocted. The evercalm Emfrem all of a sudden loses his temper over wild speculation about 2/3rds in, and it comes completely out of left field, as if Claude Rains were to all of a sudden blow up.The movie lacks pacing, and at 2+ hours just seems to drag the entire second half.

By Love Possessed (1961)In the vein of a Douglas Sirk film this is bordering on some kind of flawed masterpiece. It's flawed, it has some stumbles in the writing and story, and it really is awfully conversational and slow--but there is a very serious probing soap opera tone here that's wonderful. Maybe the single largest limitation is that the nexus of all these searching yearning people is a law firm, which lacks a level of romanticism (no offense to all those attorneys out there). And it's all filmed with a flat bright light that smacks of indifference--something you could never accuse Sirk of.But the best of this is fabulous and cumulative. It gets better as it goes. The writing--the story and the dialog both--is stunning. It might be melodrama, but it has nuance and truth on its side. In fact, the ability to show the bottled up emotional train wreck that much of America experienced in the 1950s is remarkable. There are all these good people, yearning people, who can't quite express themselves. They're smart, they know their dilemma, but they've been so trained to simply be good and lead noble lives that they forgot how to express themselves. Except maybe through words, careful and precious words.The cast here is stellar. In the lead is an actor at his best, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., who became much better known as a t.v. actor (mainly in the ten year run of "F.B.I."). He's sort of perfect, even if you might find him restrained and polished and unexciting. That's exactly his part, and he plays it with inner conviction. Next to him in the law firm is Jason Robards, a more impressive Hollywood staple, who has a smaller role but another perfect one. Their boss is the aging and almost bumbling Thomas Mitchell, who is by 1961 a kind of legend in the industry, and he's great, adding depth and warmth to the place, as much as a brightly lit law firm has human warmth.The women are equally strong, from the ever understated and impressive Barbara Bel Geddes as the wife of one lawyer and Lana Turner (no less) as the wife of another. The two children of note are a somewhat dry George Hamilton and an increasingly convincing and moving and subtle Susan Kohner, who are struggling with a rocky relationship. But then, everyone is in a rotten relationship--that's what the movie is about, as the title suggests. Throw in the great Everett Sloane (from "Citizen Kane" and so forth) and Carol O'Connor (the lead in "All in the Family") and you see you have an uncompromising ensemble situation. Yes, you might say these are all actors of a certain stripe, and no Brando or Newman or Monroe or Janet Leigh or the other flashier names of the day. That's true, and it's partly why the movie eventually sinks in deep and is effective. By the end I was really moved. It seems I'm in mixed company here, as some reviews show a total disconnect (and disparagement) of the film. I can see why someone would say that--and even if you like the overblown and moody Sirk kind of movies (the second "Imitation of Life" above all) you might see this as a, uh, pale imitation.Maybe. Or maybe it's its own beast, with superb and probing writing, whatever the contrived situation might be behind it all. I also found the first half hour almost unbearable--it's so bland in the filming and so slow in the talk talk talk and so subtle in the non-emotional development of relationship. If you abandon ship too soon you'll miss the best of it. And if you expect a more naturalistic movie than this bottled up play-on-a-screen you'll be disappointed. It is actually based on a book which stormed the New York Times bestseller list in 1957, and was nominated for a Pulitzer (and was later condemned for its pro-establishment and slightly anti-semitic content). Take this movie for what it is, it might surprise you as much as it did me, giving it some effort after all.

I had to see Lana Turner with Efrem Zimbalist, or the other way around. It was a curiosity – superstar with moderate actor. However, she did have some less than star quality leading men. Zimbalist is GQ for sure, and that voice - attractive shell but hollow performance.There have been other films with the same deficits of this one that have come across. Usually, the higher caliber actors can put it over. Someone must have called for flat line, and they all adhered. What comes out is exactly what one can find on daytime soaps. Everyone was at some stage of pathetic. That would except the Mitchell character, who was a breath of fresh air. They could have called this "All Fall Down." Too bad Helen didn't pass around the cleaning fluid and clear out all the suds. The simultaneous make-ups at the end were so low on the meter, they hardly registered. This one lacked a pulse from start to finish.

James Gould Couzzens wrote one novel that was almost great-Guard of Honor-and a lot of melodramatic junk that was wildly over praised at the time of publication.The ne plus ultra of his Literary artlessness was undoubtedly By Love Possessed. When it was published, it was a wildly praised best -seller. The only dissents came from Dwight McDonald, who wrote a hilarious assault on the book called "By Couzzens Possessed", and William F.Buckley, Jr. who took a page and a half to sink it beneath the waves in his National Review. Of course, like all melodramatic best sellers, it eventually had to be made into a Hollywood film. Unfortunatly, the only Hollywood directors capable of making it into a good movie were Sirk (and maybe, just maybe, Preminger).Sirk, in fact, with his exquisitely controlled irony, and his insight into American manners and mores would have produced a chilly, superbly calibrated, yet compassionate melodrama, comparable to All that Heaven Allows, Written on The Wind, or Imitation of Life. Unfortunatly, Sirk had fled Hollywood, and Preminger was busy making Advise and Consent. So the decadent Hollywood system in its "genius' gave it John Sturges. Result, a movie that looks like a Sirk film( thanks to Russell Metty), sounds like a Sirk film, and has the cast and plot of a Sirk film..but isnt a Sirk film. Result..bloated, turgid melodrama, without a drop of genuine wit, irony, compassion , or human insight. Well, maybe Couzzens deserved it