--- title: "The Heiress" year: 1949 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-heiress" fi1m_score: 90 critics_score: 76 critics_reviews: 8 published: "2026-09-20T01:54:36.578967+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T01:54:36.936337+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # The Heiress (1949) Directed by William Wyler · 1h 55m · MPA NR · Drama, Romance, History **Fi1m score: 90** · Critics 76 from 8 reviews *In a sentence:* A father who is right about the suitor and wrong about the daughter, and a staircase that keeps the score > William Wyler’s Henry James adaptation is cold, exact and never sentimental, which is why it hurts. Olivia de Havilland and Ralph Richardson play a daughter and father who ruin each other by telling the truth, and we would put it in front of anyone. ## Synopsis Washington Square, New York, in the 1840s. Catherine Sloper (Olivia de Havilland) is the only child of Dr Austin Sloper (Ralph Richardson), a wealthy physician who has never forgiven her for not being the brilliant wife who died giving birth to her. Catherine is shy, plain and clumsy: she buys the fish for dinner herself and cannot get through an evening without dropping something. Her widowed aunt Lavinia Penniman (Miriam Hopkins) moves in to bring her out. At a family engagement party she meets Morris Townsend (Montgomery Clift), handsome, charming and penniless, having spent his small inheritance in Europe. He calls the next day, and the day after. Catherine has ten thousand a year from her mother and three times that to come. Her father starts asking questions about Mr Townsend. ## Review Ruth and Augustus Goetz adapted Henry James’s *Washington Square* for the stage before William Wyler filmed it, and the theatre is still in it: one house, four people and a staircase. That is not a complaint. Wyler has made a film about a family that does its damage indoors, in daylight, over tea, and *The Heiress* is one of the films we would put in front of anyone who thinks Hollywood in the forties was soft. Catherine Sloper is not a beauty, and Olivia de Havilland does not play her as a beauty in disguise. She stands wrong. Her hands do not know where to go. When she speaks she says too much too fast and then stops. The scene that told us the film would hurt comes early, at a party at her aunt Elizabeth Almond’s (Selena Royle), where Catherine appears in a cherry-red dress with too much trimming on it and her father, Dr Austin Sloper (Ralph Richardson), looks her over and remarks that her mother used to wear that colour and could carry it. We winced, and Wyler held the shot, and Catherine kept smiling. Then Morris Townsend (Montgomery Clift) comes over, asks her to dance, is told she does not dance well, and takes her onto the floor anyway. Richardson gives the best performance in the film and the quietest. Sloper is the cleverest man in every room he enters, and he never raises his voice; the cruelty is in how reasonable he sounds. Watch him call on Morris’s sister, Mme. Montgomery (Betty Linley), in her small parlour, and take her apart with questions a polite man could ask. He has decided Morris is after Catherine’s money, and the film is careful not to tell us whether he is right, so we will be careful too. Clift plays Morris warm, easy and modern against a household of stage-trained actors, and the effect is a man who either does not fit or has worked out how to seem so. The house is the other lead. Harry Horner’s production design gives the Slopers a hall, a front parlour and a staircase, and Wyler brings Catherine back to those stairs at every point where the story turns. Leo Tover shoots in deep focus, so Sloper can read his paper sharp in the foreground while Catherine and Morris talk sharp at the back of the frame. Edith Head and Gile Steele put Catherine in plainer and darker dresses as the film goes on; the red one is the exception. Aaron Copland builds his score around the French song Morris sings at the piano, *Plaisir d’amour*, and each time it comes back it is a little colder. William Hornbeck cuts sparingly. Scenes run long and the actors are made to hold. Miriam Hopkins is the comedy, and then she is not. Her Aunt Lavinia has read too many novels and believes she is in one; she carries notes, arranges meetings and calls it romance. Hopkins plays her as silly rather than stupid, which is the right call, because the film needs us to see how much harm a silly woman can do when she is the only person in the house on Catherine’s side. The second half takes a turn we will not describe. What we can say is that some critics have found it cold. Time Out thought the film heartless and did not like what Catherine becomes; Variety, in 1948, called it a museum piece. We think the coldness is the point. Nobody in this house is allowed to say what they feel, and when someone finally does, it cannot be taken back. There is a stretch after the first hour where the plot marks time while everyone waits for everyone else, and the Goetzes cannot always resist giving Sloper the last word in an exchange, so that once or twice he sounds written rather than spoken. Wyler had done a staircase and a poisonous parent before, in [*The Little Foxes*](https://film.one/film/the-little-foxes) with Bette Davis. This is the better film, because here the person at the bottom of the stairs is allowed to grow up, and de Havilland shows every stage of it in her spine. It runs 115 minutes, nearly all of them indoors. See it, and then try to go up to bed without thinking about her. *Fi1m score 90, published 20 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics take to The Heiress warmly, and the praise clusters on the acting. Olivia de Havilland’s shift from awkward, unloved daughter to something harder is singled out in nearly every review, and Ralph Richardson’s stern father draws almost as much attention; Montgomery Clift is noted more than admired. William Wyler’s direction is credited with turning a drawing-room piece into a film with real intimacy, watching a household in which kindness covers cruelty, and several reviews find the period detail working for the characters rather than against them. The two dissenters part company over temperature rather than craft. Time Out finds the adaptation plush and painstaking but cold, and dislikes what the heroine becomes by the close. Variety, writing on release, calls it a faithful reproduction of the Victorian scene that ends up a museum piece, while still praising the cast. The spread is wide: six admiring notices against two that find the surfaces handsome and the film cold. ### Reviews we read (8) - **Radio Times**, Tony Sloman (5/5): This immaculately cast and brilliantly directed adaptation of Henry James's Washington Square stands as the most satisfying screen version. Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift and especially Ralph Richardson deliver standout performances in a film whose period detail serves the characters well. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-4c74wm/the-heiress/) - **The AV Club**, Keith Phipps (A): The critic highlights Olivia de Havilland's intense performance as an awkward young woman remade by love and heartbreak. Wyler focuses on power struggles between father and daughter with understated direction that observes characters getting lost in kindness hiding cruelty. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/the-heiress-1798202368) - **Los Angeles Times**, Jon Matsumoto (90/100, inferred): Wyler brings a confident and intelligent perspective to this intimate, character-driven work based on the Henry James novel, resulting in a truly tragic and moving film. Stellar acting performances, especially Olivia de Havilland's Oscar-winning turn and Ralph Richardson as the stern father, along with literate dialogue, make it a must-see. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-11-12-ol-279-story.html) - **The New York Times**, Bosley Crowther (90/100, inferred): The film is one of the handsome, intense and adult dramas of the year, with Wyler adapting the drawing-room drama into a motion picture that crackles with life and achieves absorbing intimacy. The performances, especially Ralph Richardson as the father and Olivia de Havilland as the daughter, bring full-bodied characters vividly to view while maintaining clarity of personality and emotion. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1949/10/07/archives/the-heiress-with-olivia-de-havilland-in-leading-role-arrives-at.html) - **Slant Magazine**, Jake Cole (85/100, inferred): The critic praises William Wyler's psychologically probing masterwork and keen eye for composition that enhances actors' performances. De Havilland's shift from innocence to tragic-heroine mode and the brutal impact of the protagonist's struggle stand out as highlights. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/blu-ray-review-william-wylers-the-heiress-on-the-criterion-collection/) - **Empire**, David Parkinson (75/100, inferred): The critic praises the film's compelling performances, especially Olivia de Havilland's, and the quality of the source material, noting it as a standard studio picture elevated by these elements. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/heiress-review/) - **Time Out**, GB (40/100, inferred): Wyler's plush, painstaking adaptation of Henry James's Washington Square is cold and heartless. The heroine grows into a malevolent old witch rather than a spinster of moral integrity, though the deep-focus clashes between de Havilland, Richardson and Clift are noted along with Copland's icy score. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-heiress) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (30/100, inferred): The Heiress is a meticulous reproduction of the Victorian scene, faithful to its mores but resulting in a museum piece. Strong performances are highlighted, with Olivia de Havilland as the homely daughter, Montgomery Clift as her suitor, and Ralph Richardson grand as the stern father. [Read](https://variety.com/1948/film/reviews/the-heiress-4-1200416115/) ## Details - **Director:** William Wyler - **Director:** William Wyler - **Screenplay:** Ruth Goetz, Augustus Goetz - **Novel:** Henry James - **Cinematography:** Leo Tover - **Editor:** William Hornbeck - **Music:** Aaron Copland - **Production design:** Harry Horner - **Costume design:** Edith Head, Gile Steele - **Producer:** William Wyler - **Cast:** Olivia de Havilland as Catherine Sloper; Montgomery Clift as Morris Townsend; Ralph Richardson as Dr. Austin Sloper; Miriam Hopkins as Lavinia Penniman; Vanessa Brown as Maria; Mona Freeman as Maria Almond; Ray Collins as Jefferson Almond; Betty Linley as Mme. Montgomery - **Runtime:** 1h 55m - **Certificate (MPA):** NR - **Release (the US):** 28 December 1949 - **Genres:** Drama, Romance, History - **Budget:** $3 million - **Box office:** $2 million ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: BR, IT, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1950: Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (nominated); Best Director (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Supporting Actor (nominated); Best Actress (won); Best Art Direction, Black and White (won); Best Costume Design, Black-and-White (won); Best Original Dramatic or Comedy Score (won) - Golden Globes 1949: Best Director (nominated); Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture (nominated); Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama (won) - National Board of Review Award for Best Actor 1949: National Board of Review Award for Best Actor (won) ## If you liked this - *The Little Foxes* (1941), Fi1m 85: Wyler’s earlier staircase, with Bette Davis as the parent doing the damage. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-little-foxes.md) - *Madame de...* (1953): Ophüls follows a pair of earrings through a marriage and breaks it gently. - *Now, Voyager* (1942): A bullied daughter, a monstrous mother, and Bette Davis coming out of her shell. - *The Age of Innocence* (1993), Fi1m 86: Scorsese does old New York, where the cruelty is all in the seating plan. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-age-of-innocence.md) - *Phantom Thread* (2017), Fi1m 87: A house, a controlling man, a woman who learns the rules and rewrites them. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/phantom-thread.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/the-heiress