Editing Leave Her to Heaven (section)

===Development===
[[File:Strand Theatre ad - 31 December 1945, Seymour, CT.png|thumb|Theatrical advertisement from 1945]]
In May 1944, [[Twentieth Century Fox]] executive [[Darryl F. Zanuck]] purchased the rights to [[Ben Ames Williams]] then-unpublished novel, ''Leave Her to Heaven'', planning a screen adaptation.<ref name=afi/> The studio spent an exorbitant $100,000<ref name=filmsite/> to acquire the rights to Ames' novel, which was published the following month in June 1944.<ref name=filmsite/> The title of the film and its source novel is derived from [[William Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Hamlet]]'': In Act I, Scene V, the Ghost urges Hamlet not to seek vengeance against Queen Gertrude, but rather to "leave her to heaven, and to those thorns that in her bosom lodge to prick and sting her."<ref name=filmsite/>

In November 1944, the [[Production Code Administration]] (PCA) approved [[Jo Swerling]]'s screenplay adaptation of the novel, though they strongly encouraged the studio to minimize the depiction of Ellen inducing her own miscarriage.<ref name=afi/> In their response, the PCA noted: "It will be absolutely essential to remove any flavor...&nbsp;that Ellen plans to murder the unborn child merely because she is misshapen. It should be definitely established that her reason for murdering the child is that she thinks that the newborn will replace her in her husband's affections. This is important in order to avoid any of the flavor that is normally connected with what could be termed '[[abortion]]'."<ref name=afi/>

A subsequent draft submitted to the PCA in February 1945 was disapproved as it overtly implied that Richard and Ellen had engaged in an illicit sexual affair before their marriage.<ref name=afi/> After the affair was minimized in a subsequent draft, the screenplay was approved for shooting.<ref name=afi/>