Dark Waters (1944 film)

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Dark Waters
Darkwaters1944.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Andre de Toth
Screenplay byMarian B. Cockrell
Joan Harrison
Arthur Horman
Based on The Saturday Evening Post serial Dark Waters
by Francis M. Cockrell
Marian B. Cockrell
Produced by Benedict Bogeaus
Starring Merle Oberon
Franchot Tone
Thomas Mitchell
Fay Bainter
Elisha Cook, Jr.
Cinematography John J. Mescall
Archie Stout
Edited by James Smith
Music by Miklós Rózsa
Production
company
Benedict Bogeaus Productions
Distributed by United Artists
Release date
  • November 21, 1944 (1944-11-21)(United States)
Running time
90 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$800,000 [1]

Dark Waters is a 1944 American Gothic film noir based on the novel of the same name by Francis and Marian Cockrell. It was directed by Andre de Toth and starred Merle Oberon, Franchot Tone, and Thomas Mitchell. [2]

Contents

Plot

Leslie Calvin, the shaken survivor of a ship sunk by a submarine, travels to her aunt and uncle's Louisiana plantation to recuperate, but her relatives, whom she has never met, have other ideas. She is befriended by a young local doctor, George Grover.

Mr Sydney (Thomas Mitchell) is a mysterious and fussy guest at the plantation. In a subtle nod to Gone with the Wind - Mitchell played the congenial Gerald O'Hara in the movie - the aunt tells Leslie that "Tomorrow is another day."

Cast

Reception

The film was generally well received as accomplishing what it intended, with the New York Times stating it was "neatly produced and directed – and well played by an excellent cast." [3]

Critical response

Slant Magazine's film critic, Glenn Heath Jr., liked the film writing, "Mood dictates narrative in Andre de Toth's Dark Waters, a hallucinatory jigsaw puzzle set in the deep swamps of 1940s Louisiana that becomes a perfect breeding ground for noirish shadows and deceptive wordplay ... Dark Waters ends with multiple dead bodies sinking into the bayou and Leslie directly confronting what one character calls her "persuasion complex." The bravura finale through the oozing locale is a stunner, and despite some surface romance that feels a bit forced, the film stays true to its mystically dark mood, a slithering distant cousin to Tourneur's I Walked with a Zombie . [4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Indies $70,000,000 Pix Output". Variety: 3. November 3, 1944. Retrieved July 26, 2016.
  2. ↑ Dark Waters at IMDb.
  3. ↑ Jancovich, Mark (Summer 2013). "Bluebeard's Wives: Horror, Quality and the Paranoid Woman's Film of the 1940s" (PDF). Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies (12). Trinity College Dublin: 20, 28. ISSN   2009-0374 . Retrieved 22 May 2021.
  4. ↑ Heath Jr., Glenn, Slant Magazine , film review, January 28, 2011. Accessed: July 4, 2013.
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