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William Wyler’s The Heiress is a ravishingly produced melodrama in which the dowdy heiress finds herself pursued by a handsome admirer — but her father’s suspicions about this new man threaten her life of comfort.

Winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Actress for Olivia de Havilland, the film is an adaptation of the play of the same name, itself an adapted from Henry James’s 1880 novel Washington Square. The three lead actors — de Havilland in the title role, Ralph Richardson as her overbearing father, and Montgomery Clift as the mysterious love interest — deliver remarkable performances, strongly anchoring the doubts around each character’s intentions.