Editing Leave Her to Heaven (section)

===Genre and the ''femme fatale''===
''Leave Her to Heaven'' is often described as the first [[film noir]] to be shot in color,<ref name=filmsite/> although film scholars and critics have characterized the film as a [[psychological thriller film|thriller]], a [[Melodrama (film genre)|melodrama]] (Walker), a psychological melodrama (Turim), a women's film (Morris), or a romantic drama (Bourget). Scholar [[Emanuel Levy]] notes that the film embodies both "conventions of the noir and psychological melodrama," blurring the distinction and resulting in a unique, one-of-a-kind work.<ref name=levy/>

Joshi identifies Ellen Berent as one of the prime examples of the ''[[femme fatale]]'' in film history.{{sfn|Joshi|2007|p=526}} Film and [[feminism|feminist]] theorist and writer [[Mary Ann Doane]] notes that Ellen's "excessive desire" for Richard is signaled by her "intense and sustained stare" at him in the beginning of the film.{{sfn|Doane|2013|p=27}} Over the course of the film, Ellen reveals her possessiveness in increasingly violent and destructive ways, rendering her, in Doane's words, "the epitome of evil."{{sfn|Doane|2013|pages=27–28}} Smith notes that Ellen is an atypical example of the ''femme fatale'' as, unlike with many of her contemporaries, her impulses to kill and wreak destruction are driven purely by a pathological yearning for love, whereas the prototypical ''femme fatale'' is often motivated by financial or other social reasons.<ref name=smith>{{cite AV media|title=Imogen Sara Smith on John M. Stahl's Leave Her to Heaven|people=Smith, Imogen Sara|year=2020|publisher=[[The Criterion Collection]]|medium=Blu-ray documentary short}}</ref> Critics who argue that the film is not a film noir note that Ellen does not seduce Richard into acting against his interests or breaking the law (in short, that she is not a femme fatale) (Walker).