Possessed shows the heroine (Joan Crawford) early in the film announcing that her life belongs to her-even if she makes a mess of it. She declares that her mother would think it all right if she struck out to seek her fortune, using whatever means at her disposal, if she were a man. We're not sure how this Erie, Pennsylvania factory worker came to such notions, but we don't doubt her ambition for a minute. The weary roué she meets acts as a career counselor, helping her go into business in the most popular profession of the so-called pre-Code era, the "kept woman." The struggle for this woman, however, is how to be both kept and in charge of her destiny. Director Clarence Brown's films frequently dealt with difficulties faced by daringly independent women; Possessed was the first of five he made with Joan Crawford. It was also the last film the Hays Office let slip through without reviewing the script beforehand. What seems at first to be a typically happy ending is precisely what one Production Code official meant when he said, "The philosophy of this is all wrong."-Lee Amazonas