Tonight's movie was "Dragonwyck" (1946), the third and final film in my Fox Horror Classics Vol. 2 collection. I had been meaning to see it for many years because it stars Gene Tierney, one of my favorite actresses. "Laura", the famous film noir, is her most well-known role and she was good in many others, usually playing fragile but resilient heroines, sometimes naive and preyed upon by men who used her beauty against her. Gene Tierney was exceptionally beautiful and at one point early in her career she was courted by Senator John F. Kennedy, the future President. But she didn't have an easy life. She grew increasingly nervous on the sets of her films and began hearing voices. At one point she climbed out he window of her mother's 14th floor apartment building and stood pressed against the ledge, not sure if she could jump. In the early 1950s she had a complete breakdown and entered an institution, where she slowly made a recovery. But her career never fully recovered and she dealt with depression and the effects of her condition for the rest of her life.
But when she was at the top of her game she was a fine actress, and in "Dragonwyck" she has a role tailor made for her personality. She plays a young woman living on a farm in Connecticut with her parents and little sister. Her father (The great Walter Houston) is very religious. He consults The Lord on every major decision. A letter arrives at the farm from a distant cousin, a landowner in New York who is known as a "Patroon", meaning a man who allows small farmers to use his vast land holdings in exchange for a share of their crops and an exorbitant rent. The year is 1844 and the rest of the country has done away with such unfair policies. The local farmers in New York are organising too, but Vincent Price, who plays the haughty Patroon, has vowed to fight them will all of his will. His family has owned the land and the gloomy Dragonwyck mansion for 200 years, and Price will not go down without a fight.
He has sent the letter to his cousin Walter Houston (who has never met him) because he needs a nanny for his young daughter, whom he and his troubled wife more or less ignore. Houston's daughter Gene Tierney desperately wants to go. She respects her strict religious upbringing but wants to see more of life. Her father is against it, but after meeting Vincent Price he agrees to pray on it, and finally he agrees to let his daughter go to Dragonwyck.
Boy was that ever a mistake.
Here we are in Haunted House territory again, like we were last night with "13 Ghosts". Only this time, we are watching a major studio production, a Grade A melodrama directed by top Hollywood craftsman Joseph L. Mankiewicz (great uncle of TCM's Ben). The script is well-developed from a popular book, and the ghosts are mostly in the heads of the deeply disturbed Price and his blood relations. Vincent Price, a great actor not always given credit as such, is in a role here that should have earned him an Oscar nomination. He is a wealthy but tottering control freak who will not tolerate any change in his fortunes, even as those around him (such as his sickly, self absorbed wife and treasonous maid) can see the newly liberated working class breaking free from his hold that has been a death grip on their lives. He is a hated man who responds with bitter coldness toward any who oppose him.
But he also has deeply hidden secrets, and this is the mystery of whatever is going on inside the many-roomed mansion. Gene Tierney is not allowed up to the top floor, nor is a second maid (the great Jessica Tandy), even more inquisitive than the first. Price detests Tandy because she is crippled, another sign of self-projected rot in his character.
I shall now tell you no more, because to do so would threaten to reveal the secrets of Dragonwyck, which you must uncover for yourself.
I mentioned that I'd been waiting to see this movie for a long time, maybe five years or more. I found it available a couple of years ago in the Fox Horror Classics Vol. 2 collection, but still I waited because the collection was expensive for a three film set, and also because reviewers described "Dragonwyck" not as a horror film but more of a Gothic Drama. I was confused but intrigued, yet the urge to see it never abated. It was always in my mental movie queue, and when I finally saw it tonight it matched the high expectations I'd held for it for such a long time.
"Dragonwyck" is an Absolute Must See, in the tradition of "Rebecca" and "Wuthering Heights", only a bit weirder than either. Vincent Price gives a towering performance as the rigidly sadistic Patroon, who undermines the people closest to him as he slowly sabotages himself with self hatred.
I was blown away by every aspect of this movie, from the classic, full bodied black and white photography to the brilliant set design of the mansion, to the shifting chiaroscuro lighting and especially the performances, of Price especially, and also the lovely Gene Tierney and Walter Houston (and all the others).
Two Huge Thumbs Up, a must see.
This morning we had good singing in church, and later this aft, I actually got a hike in. Not an easy feat these days, but it was a day off, so I went out to Chatsworth Park and hiked up the hillside into Santa Su, where I had a nice stroll and took a few pics, one of which I posted on FB earlier.
Hope your day was good. See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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