"Dragonwyck" Movie Review

 

by Daniel White

Yesterday I incurred the wrath of a fellow film buff. Distraught over my review of the film Violent Saturday, he sternly admonished me for using words like "kitcshy" and "potboiler". It seems he was heartbroken I didn't appreciate "melodrama" the way he did, that I did not bestow upon it the reverence it deserved. As Auntie Em might say, "Pshaw".

I actually liked Violent Saturday, but felt some aspects of it were dated and overwrought. I adore movies from The Golden Age of Hollywood, but let's face it, not everything Tinseltown turned out back then was golden. Unfortunately, melodrama does not always age well. But let's rejoice that we all have a common love of film. Remember one dame's melodrama is another dude's Camp! I may not be enthralled by your favorite flick, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy it!

Twentieth Century Fox's Dragonwyck (1946) is nothing BUT melodrama, a film that would have been right at home in the Grand Guignol repertoire. Lovely Gene Tierney stars as Miranda Wells, an adventurous Connecticut maiden who finds herself at the mercy of the mad Vincent Price.

First time director Joseph L. Mankiewicz took over from an ailing Ernst Lubitsch and acquits himself nicely. It's not a great film, I'm not even sure it's a GOOD one, but it certainly is an interesting piece of movie making, with enough satisfying moments to make it worthwhile.

I am a huge Gene Tierney fan, but this is the first time I've witnessed the breathtakingly beautiful actress being upstaged by her leading man. Vincent Price as Nicholas van Ryn is wonderfully whacky as the crazy Catskill "patroon" (thank the cinema gods that original choice Gregory Peck was unavailable, talk about a woeful piece of miscasting!). It's probably his meatiest pre House of Wax role and our star pulls out all the stops. When he calls poor Jessica Tandy as the lame Irish maid, Peggy, a "loathsome little cripple", I chortled with delight. This guy not only chews up the scenery, he does it while feasting on a hambone! Sometimes "bad acting" is much, much more satisfying than the histrionics that get awarded those little golden statues.

Dragonwyck as a whole falters, but its bits and pieces are fabulous. Alfred Newman's score (especially during the opening credits) is stirring, and Arthur Miller's cinematography, appropriately gloomy. And what a supporting cast! Besides the spirited Tandy, Walter Huston and Anne Revere are terrific as Gene's puritanical parents. Especially Huston, who matches Price as a scene stealer extraordinaire! Spring Byington is a hoot playing against type as the hovering Magda, a maid from the Mrs. Danvers school of housekeeping! Without question, every single one of the character actors plays their part to perfection. It's unfortunate that the exquisite Miss Tierney has been eclipsed by Price, but that's the price one pays when Price is allowed to go unchecked. It's not that she gives an ineffective performance, but nobody stands a chance when Vincent Price is mugging gloriously for the camera.

Based on the novel by Anya Seton, Mankiewicz also wrote the screenplay, which mixes actual historic events and churns them up with chunks of Gothic Americana. Connie Marshall plays the van Ryn's troubled daughter Katrine, but inexplicably disappears midway through the film (did she too suffer a horticultural mishap like her sugar crazed mama?).

With Glenn Langan as a country doctor besotted with Gene, Vivienne Osborne as Price's gluttonous wife (and the sticky fingered mother of Katrine), and the always welcome Grady Sutton playing a fawning Manhattan hotel manager, Dragonwyck is available on YouTube.

Next up on Follow That Film: China Girl (1942)