Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Hot 888 Mama " . . . to the meaning of young love: Drain-O," boosts the narrator of the trailer for BY LOVE POSSESSED, in the clearest indication that this misclassified "melodrama" was originally released in 1961 as a screwball comedy. There was a time when someone could have called Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney or Errol Flynn and Olivia De Havilland "two of the screen's finest young stars," but NO ONE ever said such a thing about Susan Kohner and George Hamilton with a straight face! Furthermore, during this slap-stick BY LOVE POSSESSED flick, Ms. Kohner finds Mr. Hamilton's character so insipid and lacking in sex appeal that she does herself in by drinking a can of Drain-O off-screen. The rest of the cast simply observe at such a usually sad occurrence that Susan's role was as a Detweiler, and "Detweilers always off themselves." So after Susan's tragic-comical disappearance, they simply go about their business for the rest of this farce without missing a beat. The fact that Ms. Detweiler was the richest gal in town, and that she willed her fortune to her kindly guardian lawyer (who's been embezzling steadily from every trust that he controls) can only work as a plot device in the Darkest Recesses of Black Humor. As Mr. Hamilton plays a rich kid debating with HIS lawyer dad whether he nailed "the Three Elements of Rape" with his "let's play 'Veronica says'" one-night stand chick, BY LOVE POSSESSED morphs into something perhaps better titled BY EVIL POSSESSED.

jhkp Adult drama which in other hands might have been soapy or turgid. Of course there is something to be said for a lurid melodrama. This just doesn't happen to be one.It's about a suburban Massachusetts law firm and the interrelationships of the partners and their families. Lana Turner is top billed. She gives a quiet, rather different performance (for her). She plays a gentle drinker, a touching figure. She's well paired with Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., as her husband's law partner, whom she turns to when hubby (Jason Robards, Jr.) proves emotionally unavailable. (Zimbalist, in turn, is married to Barbara Bel Geddes. George Hamilton plays their son. George is involved with Susan Kohner, the ward of the third and final law partner, Thomas Mitchell.) Zimbalist gives a nice performance. Never a flashy actor, he's perfectly cast here in a conservative role, a man with a conscience and a man of character. The story is told very well and without undue histrionics or flamboyance. The one thing that doesn't seem to work is the subplot involving Yvonne Craig as a trampy chick Hamilton gets involved with, who refers to herself in the third person. For me that just seemed unreal. Unfortunately, this segment is central to the plot.A certain amount of the film was shot on location. The opening is downtown Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and the elegant homes are in Groton.The story takes a while to build. The first half hour is not especially gripping. After all, it was made to be seen in a theater, where you bought your ticket and settled in, not on TV, where you can change the channel. The screenplay (by Charles Schnee, using a pseudonym) tends to merely sketch in a lot of things. Apparently it was based on a large book. It's like you feel you have to go back and read that book. Occasionally, the motivations of the characters seem to need more explanation. On the other hand, this works, from time to time, it keeps you guessing, which is in itself, interesting and a reason to keep watching.

misctidsandbits 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.

Joseph Harder 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