I’m well aware that Alfred Newman’s booming score ads a certain melodramatic je ne sais quoi that a single frame can’t do justice; nevertheless, there’s something to be said for the unsettlingly austere gaze with which Gene Tierney’s Ellen Berent spreads her father’s ashes (back and forth, back and forth!) on horseback in John M. Stahl 1945 adaptation of Ben Ames Williams’s Leave Her to Heaven. That, and those lips. Seriously, either I’ve got an asexual fetish for crazy ladies in red lipstick, or dazzlingly red lips are Technicolor color coding for “psycho bitch.” Either way, I love it.
And as usual, don’t hesitate to click to enlarge and appreciate the fabulousness of it all.
Nobody Puts Baby in a Horner 
I so love this movie–you also have it on DVD, right? If not let me know.
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Glad to see I’m not the only one that gets lost in that moment, too. I don’t know if it was the music or just her dedication to spreading those ashes (yes!… back and forth, back and forth…), but there are only a handful of scenes in various films that spellbound me like this does.
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