Perfect cast and a good story

Good start, but then it gets ruined

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The romantic-historical novelist Anya Seton can be seen as an American equivalent of her British contemporary Daphne du Maurier, and Seton's novel "Dragonwyck" has a lot in common with du Maurier's "Rebecca", including the fact that both books are clearly influenced by Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre". All three novels have at their centre a young woman from a relatively humble background who marries a wealthy and charismatic older landowner belonging to the gentry or aristocracy. In each case the older man has been married before and is hiding a guilty secret connected with his first wife. "Dragonwyck", like "Jane Eyre" but unlike "Rebecca" which has a twentieth-century setting, is set in the first half of the nineteenth century. The story takes place in upstate New York during the 1840s, a period when the Hudson River valley was still dominated by the Patroons, the descendants of wealthy seventeenth-century Dutch settlers who owned large tracts of land which they controlled in a similar manner to European feudal aristocrats. By the 1840s, however, the autocratic power of the Patroons was being challenged by their tenant farmers, who resented paying what they saw as exorbitant rents and tithes, in what have become known as the "Anti-Rent Wars". The heroine, Miranda Wells, is the daughter of a poor Connecticut farmer. She is invited by Nicholas Van Ryn, a Patroon and a distant cousin of her mother, to come and live at his country house Dragonwyck Manor as a companion to his daughter. Dragonwyck, as one might expect in a melodrama of this nature, is an immense, gloomy Gothic mansion, even though we learn that it dates back to the seventeenth century when Gothic architecture was out of fashion. (Any Gothic building in 1840s America would probably have been of very recent construction). On the surface Nicholas seems charming and sophisticated, but he soon reveals a darker side to his character. He ignores his wife Johanna and his daughter Katrine, and treats his tenants with an arrogant condescension. Something else which shocks Miranda, who has grown up in a deeply religious family, is that in private Nicholas makes no secret of his atheistic opinions, although in public he tries to keep up the image of a devout churchgoer. The servants hint darkly that both the house and the Van Ryn family are cursed. And yet, despite all this, Miranda falls deeply in love with her cousin and, after Johanna dies of a sudden illness, marries him despite the vehement opposition of her parents and despite the fact that she has another admirer in the handsome, politically radical young doctor Jeff Turner. The plot then develops as one might expect, with Nicholas turning out to have a sinister past and the marriage proving to be far from happy. The ending of the film, however, is not that of the novel, probably because the producers felt that Seton's denouement, which involved a steamboat race on the Hudson River, would be too costly to reproduce on screen. The film is not the sort of "heritage cinema" costume drama with which we are familiar today. Ever since late fifties, and certainly since the sixties, it has been customary for films set in the 1800s to be made in colour, often sumptuous colour, with an emphasis on a detailed recreation of the costumes and furnishings of the era. "Dragonwyck" would doubtless have been more visually attractive had it been made in this way, but in 1946 the economics of film-making meant that colour was still the exception rather than the rule and it was still common for period dramas to be made in black-and-white, despite the precedent of "Gone with the Wind" from several years earlier. (Gene Tierney, who stars as Miranda here, was to act in another example, "The Ghost and Mrs Muir", the following year). Vincent Price succeeds well in conveying both sides of Nicholas's personality, the charming and the sinister. This was one of his early roles, but one that looks forward to the sort of parts in melodramas and horror movies he played later in his career, such as the Poe/Corman cycle of the sixties. (There are certainly similarities between Nicholas and Roderick in "The Fall of the House of Usher" or Verden Fell in "The Tomb of Ligeia"). Gregory Peck was, apparently, the first choice for Van Ryn, but in this period of his career he was not an actor normally associated with villains- his Mengele in "The Boys from Brazil" came much later- and I cannot help feeling that he would not have been nearly as convincing as Price. Tierney- as she generally did- makes an adorable heroine, and there are also good contributions from Walter Huston as Miranda's strait-laced old father, nearly as autocratic as van Ryn, and from Spring Byington as the old maidservant Magda. This was the first film to be directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who took over when Ernst Lubitsch dropped out because of ill-health; he was also to direct Tierney in "The Ghost and Mrs Muir". It is not, by any means, one of Mankiewicz's greatest films, certainly not when compared to something like "All about Eve", but it is still a very decent one, a dark and haunting Gothic melodrama. 7/10

Have just seen "Dragonwyck" after it had been released 66 years ago, and I found it to be absorbing, brilliantly acted and photographed. Gene Tierney stars as the simple farm girl who is elevated to Lady of the Manor for reasons that she did not comprehend, Vincent Price was superb as the master of Dragonwyck, while those two wonderful people, Walter Huston and Anne Revere, as usual, brilliant. The story by Anya Seton is well-handled, but that is where the frustration comes in-too many people in key roles just disappear from the film without any explanation, e.g. the Master's Daughter, The Housekeeper, the crippled maid,etc. It certainly gives the distinct impression that quite a bit of cutting has been done prior to release, as their part in the story was integral to the plot.

"Dragonwyck", based on the novel by Anya Seton, tells of a naive farm girl who accepts an offer from an aristocratic cousin to act as a governess at Dragonwyck Manor. Once there, however, we find that her benefactor may have ulterior motives.The cast is a pretty good one. Vincent Price's speciality was playing characters like Nicholas Van Ryn. His suavity and seductiveness serves to conceal a malignant nature. Gene Tierney also gives a fine performance, as does Walter Huston as her disciplinarian father.The main problem with the film, though, is the script. Writer/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz's script is well written but I find that the plot just isn't that compelling. Also, some of the mystery shrouded background could have used a little elaboration.Mankiewicz's first-time direction is steady but unspectacular. Meanwhile, the cinematography by three-time Oscar winner Arthur C. Miller and the score by nine-time Oscar winner Alfred Newman effectively establish the film's tone.All things considered, "Dragonwyck" is a perfectly acceptable Gothic thriller. While the story may be a little flat, the film is still worth watching due to some strong performances.

Dragonwyck (1946)A high drama, historical drama, and drama drama. And the drama part works, so that's most of the movie. It's a fairly stiff arrangement, however, including the purposely stiff Vincent Price, who plays a noble Dutch American (a patroon) with a fabulous estate on the Hudson. Director Mankiewicz is great at nuanced characterizations, including a zealous father played by Walter Huston. This may not be his best product, but it's rich with details and lush textures both visually and in the narrative, and it gets more intense as the small events come to conflict by the end.What sometimes hobbles the whole thing is the simplified tenant farmer revolt, whatever its roots. (I live near to where this is fictionally set, and there is no trace of this kind of culture at all here, just some place names, and I have a suspicion it was never this exaggerated, not in the 1800s, though perhaps in the 1600s, when the Dutch really ruled the area, then called New Netherland.) The pageantry, the great house, the storms, and the big dances, all of this is romantic Bronte territory, well done, and great atmosphere. The music by Alfred Newman and the photography by Arthur C. Miller, both great talents at their professional best, do their usual best, as well.So what works best, beyond the overall mood, is the presence of the two women: the visiting niece of course, the star, Gene Tierney, and equally, in a subtle way, Connie Marshall, the suffering wife of the patroon. Tierney has a kind of cool reserve that works here, letting the light work on her pretty head. Eventually, the handsome doctor's role takes on more complex importance (played by Glenn Langan), and Price has a fine end, which Price fans will greatly admire.