Dragonwyck

A search of the blog suggests that I haven't posted about Dragonwyck before. It's going to be on FXM tomorrow morning at 8:05 AM, and it doesn't seem to be in print on DVD, so you're going to have to catch the FXM showing.

Gene Tierney plays Miranda Wells, eldest daughter in a family working a tiny farm in Connecticut in 1844. One day, the family gets a letter from a distant cousin, Nicholas Van Ryn. Van Ryn is what was known as a patroon, that is, a Dutch-descended landowner in New York who held large tracts of land farmed by tenant farmers. Nicholas has a wife and daughter, and wants Miranda to be a governess to the daughter. Miranda wants to escape her life in Connecticut, but her ultra-religious father Ephraim (Walter Huston) has a very dim view of the outside world, especially people like Van Ryn who are rich enough to be wasteful.

Still, Dad ultimately relents and lets Miranda do the Van Ryn's estate of Dragonwyck on the Hudson River. At first it's a sort of big adventure for Miranda, but it's not going to be a bed of roses for her. On her very first night, the maid gives off some very bad vibes that lead the viewer to understand things aren't right. The other members of high society look down on Miranda for not knowing anybody or anything, and there's trouble brewing with the tenant farmers, led by Bleecker (Harry Morgan) who doesn't want to pay the annual rent. The only adult who seems to have Miranda's best interests at heart is Dr. Turner (Glenn Langan), who is Mrs. Van Ryn's personal physician.

Mrs. Van Ryn seems a bit sickly, and one night she gets a sudden attack of something and dies right then. Dr. Turner is worried because he can't figure out what killed her, while for Miranda, it means the end of her time at Dragonwyck, or so she thinks as she goes back to Connecticut. Nicholas comes calling with unrevealed sinister intentions. The first Mrs. Van Ryn had not been able to bear Nicholas a son to take over as the patroon, and Nicholas, desperately wanting a son, asks Miranda to marry him. She doesn't realize how much danger she's about to be in....

Dragonwyck is a good enough gothic drama, although not quite what I had remembered it as being from my previous viewing many years ago. Tierney is as lovely to look at as always, and Price is suitably sinister. I do, however, prefer their pairing in Laura and their work together in Leave Her to Heaven. Dragonwyck is, by comparison, lesser stuff.

This is not to say that Dragonwyck is bad. If you like the actors, or historical drama released in back of those days, you'll definitely enjoy it. It's more that if I were going to introduce people to either these actors or the genre, there are other movies that I would start off with, and leave this one until later for people who are more receptive.