I'll tell you why so serious

Good concept, poorly executed.

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

" . . . to the meaning of young love: Drain-O," boosts the narrator of the trailer for BY LOVE POSSESSED, in the clearest indication that this misclassified "melodrama" was originally released in 1961 as a screwball comedy. There was a time when someone could have called Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney or Errol Flynn and Olivia De Havilland "two of the screen's finest young stars," but NO ONE ever said such a thing about Susan Kohner and George Hamilton with a straight face! Furthermore, during this slap-stick BY LOVE POSSESSED flick, Ms. Kohner finds Mr. Hamilton's character so insipid and lacking in sex appeal that she does herself in by drinking a can of Drain-O off-screen. The rest of the cast simply observe at such a usually sad occurrence that Susan's role was as a Detweiler, and "Detweilers always off themselves." So after Susan's tragic-comical disappearance, they simply go about their business for the rest of this farce without missing a beat. The fact that Ms. Detweiler was the richest gal in town, and that she willed her fortune to her kindly guardian lawyer (who's been embezzling steadily from every trust that he controls) can only work as a plot device in the Darkest Recesses of Black Humor. As Mr. Hamilton plays a rich kid debating with HIS lawyer dad whether he nailed "the Three Elements of Rape" with his "let's play 'Veronica says'" one-night stand chick, BY LOVE POSSESSED morphs into something perhaps better titled BY EVIL POSSESSED.

I had to see Lana Turner with Efrem Zimbalist, or the other way around. It was a curiosity – superstar with moderate actor. However, she did have some less than star quality leading men. Zimbalist is GQ for sure, and that voice - attractive shell but hollow performance.There have been other films with the same deficits of this one that have come across. Usually, the higher caliber actors can put it over. Someone must have called for flat line, and they all adhered. What comes out is exactly what one can find on daytime soaps. Everyone was at some stage of pathetic. That would except the Mitchell character, who was a breath of fresh air. They could have called this "All Fall Down." Too bad Helen didn't pass around the cleaning fluid and clear out all the suds. The simultaneous make-ups at the end were so low on the meter, they hardly registered. This one lacked a pulse from start to finish.

What can be more laughable than a film that attempts to skewer wasp hypocrisy and small-town stereotyping, but uses such stereotyping in it's presentation of characters? This is an unabashed attempt to gather the Peyton Place fans by bringing back Lana Turner to a New England setting in Autumn, along with the period Boy-Man of angst, George Hamilton. While Turner is so good that she can do this type of role in her sleep, and still come off well, the rest of the cast is pretty wooden, especially Efrem Zimbalist. It's easy to see why he could portray an FBI agent on TV so well.Nothing more than a turgid melodrama, so popular at the time, filmed in color with a panoramic view so that it could lure the women of 1961 away from the B&W small-screen TV daytime soap operas, to see the exact same stuff on a big screen. Pass on it and get Peyton Place instead, unless you're a Lana Turner fanatic.

Awful. BY LOVE POSSESSED is a really horrendous movie --- a soap opera completely devoid of style and class. Lana Turner cheats on husband Jason Robards Jr. by having an affair Efrem Zimbalist Jr. Turner obviously likes good lineage, but that's still one junior too many! The characters drink a lot and ride horses and live in absurd houses on acres and acres of land. Zimbalist's ne'er do well son is played by George Hamilton. He's being blackmailed by party girl Yvonne Craig while trying to get something started with débutante Susan Kohner. The less said about Hamilton's acting the better. Turner and Zimbalist are dreadful and Robards is saddled with the absurd task of playing a drunk. He acts and acts and acts. As Zimbalist's patient wife, Barbara Bel Geddes emerges unscathed. Directed by a clearly derailed John Sturges.