Plot
In 1844 Greenwich, Connecticut, Miranda Wells, a farm girl raised by strait-laced low church parents, often daydreams of a romantic and luxurious life. Miranda's mother receives a letter from their distant cousin Nicholas Van Ryn, a wealthy patroon in Hudson, New York. Miranda persuades her parents to allow her travel to Nicholas' manor, Dragonwyck, to be a companion to his eight-year-old daughter, Katrine. Miranda gradually learns that Nicholas and his wife Johanna are estranged from each other and from their daughter. Servants claim the Van Ryn bloodline is cursed as only they can hear a harpsichord played by an ancestral ghost whenever misfortune befalls the family.
While secretly attending the tenant farmers' Kermesse with Katrine, Miranda meets Anti-Rent supporter, Dr. Jeff Turner. Miranda also witnesses Nicholas evicting farmer Klaas Bleecker for refusing to participate in the annual rent-paying ceremony. A few days later, Klaas is accused of murder. Nicholas grudgingly agrees to Turner's request that the farmer be given a fair trial, in return for which he insists the doctor attend to his ailing wife, Johanna. Although Johanna is diagnosed with a simple cold, she dies unexpectedly of acute gastritis after eating cake.
Nicholas tells Miranda he was unhappy that Johanna was unable to bear him a son after Katrine's birth left her unable to have more children. He also admits having romantic feelings for Miranda. She reciprocates his feelings, but returns to Greenwich. Two months later, Nicholas arrives and proposes marriage. Miranda's parents, Ephraim and Abigail, reluctantly consent. Nicholas is thrilled when Miranda becomes pregnant soon after the wedding, but they quarrel over her simple faith in a God as the semi-feudal system of patroon land ownership and tenancy crumbles around him. When their infant son dies immediately after being baptized, a heartbroken and embittered Nicholas isolates himself in the attic and becomes a drug addict. Peg O'Malley, Miranda's loyal maid, fears for Miranda's life and calls upon Dr. Turner for help.
Turner arrives as Nicholas is suffering a psychotic episode characterized by auditory hallucinations. He realizes Nicholas fatally poisoned Johanna. Nicholas implies he is plotting Miranda's murder. He lunges at Turner, and the two brawl with the younger Turner ultimately knocking Nicholas out. Peggy spirits Miranda away for safety.
An increasingly volatile and dangerous Nicholas grabs a pistol and goes to the Kermesse grounds in an attempt to revive patroonal authority by restoring old rituals of tenancy. Turner arrives with the tenant farmers, the mayor, and the sheriff, to arrest Nicholas for his first wife's murder. When Nicholas reaches for his gun, he is fatally shot.
Turner escorts Miranda to her family's Greenwich farm. As they part, Turner, who previously attempted to court Miranda, asks to see her again. She agrees that he may.
Reception
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times said: "... Twentieth Century-Fox has fashioned a grand and gloomy mansion as the scene, and has inhabited it with a haughty master of aristocratic Dutch descent. ... Vincent Price gives a picturesque performance as the regal and godless patroon, using his face and his carriage to demonstrate insolence, that's all. Clean shaven and elegantly tailored, he still makes a formidable Bluebeard, and his moments of suave diabolism are about the best in the film. Gene Tierney is fairly ornamental in the role of the tortured child bride, but she plainly creates no more character than the meager script provides. Of the several lesser characters, Walter Huston is most credible as the forthright, God-fearing father of the cardboard heroine." [6]
The film premiered at the Roxy Theatre in New York City on April 10, 1946, and grossed $109,000 in its first week. [1] [7] The following week it became the number one film in the United States after opening in Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, St Louis and Seattle with a total of $277,000 for the week in the markets covered by Variety . [8] [9]
It was the 37th top grosser in the United States and Canada for the year with theatrical rentals of $3 million. [2]
Laura is a 1944 American film noir produced and directed by Otto Preminger. It stars Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews, along with Clifton Webb, Vincent Price, and Judith Anderson. The screenplay by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Betty Reinhardt is based on the 1943 novel Laura by Vera Caspary. Laura received five nominations for the Academy Awards, including for Best Director, winning for Best Black and White Cinematography. In 1999, Laura was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The American Film Institute named it one of the 10 best mystery films of all time, and it also appears on Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" series.
Heaven Can Wait is a 1943 Technicolor American supernatural comedy film produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch. The screenplay was by Samson Raphaelson based on the play Birthday by Ladislaus Bus-Fekete. The music score was by Alfred Newman and the cinematography by Edward Cronjager.
A Letter to Three Wives is a 1949 American romantic drama directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starring Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell and Ann Sothern. The film was adapted by Vera Caspary and written for the screen by Mankiewicz from A Letter to Five Wives, a story by John Klempner that appeared in Cosmopolitan, based on Klempner's 1945 novel.
Lust for Life is a 1956 American biographical film about the life of the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, based on the 1934 novel of the same title by Irving Stone which was adapted for the screen by Norman Corwin.
The year 1948 in film involved some significant events.
The year 1946 in film involved some significant events, including the release of the decade's highest-grossing film, The Best Years of Our Lives, which won seven Academy Awards.
Gene Eliza Tierney was an American film and stage actress. Acclaimed for her great beauty, she became established as a leading lady. She was best known for her portrayal of the title character in the film Laura (1944), and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Ellen Berent Harland in Leave Her to Heaven (1945).
Leave Her to Heaven is a 1945 American psychological thriller film noir melodrama directed by John M. Stahl and starring Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, and Vincent Price. It follows a socialite who marries a prominent novelist, which spurs a violent, obsessive, and dangerous jealousy in her. It is based on the 1944 novel of the same name by Ben Ames Williams, adapted by screenwriter Jo Swerling.
Joseph Leo Mankiewicz was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Mankiewicz had a long Hollywood career, and won both the Academy Award for Best Director and the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in consecutive years for A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve (1950), the latter of which was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won six.
The Anti-Rent War was a tenants' revolt in upstate New York between 1839 and 1845. The Anti-Renters declared their independence from the manor system run by patroons, resisting tax collectors and successfully demanding land reform. The conflict resulted in the passage of laws that made feudal tenures illegal and outlawed leases greater than 12 years.
That's Entertainment! is a 1974 American compilation film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to celebrate the studio's 50th anniversary. The success of the retrospective prompted a 1976 sequel, the related 1985 film That's Dancing!, and a third installment in 1994.
The Outlaw is a 1943 American Western film directed by Howard Hughes and starring Jack Buetel, Jane Russell, Thomas Mitchell and Walter Huston. Hughes also produced the film, removing original director Howard Hawks and replacing original cinematographer Lucien Ballard with Gregg Toland. The film is notable as Russell's breakthrough role to becoming a sex symbol and Hollywood star. Later advertising billed Russell as the sole star. The Outlaw is an early example of a psychological Western.
Lawrence James Tierney was an American film and television actor who is best known for his many screen portrayals of mobsters and "tough-guys" in a career that spanned over fifty years. His roles mirrored his own frequent brushes with the law. In 2005, film critic David Kehr of The New York Times described "the hulking Tierney" as "not so much an actor as a frightening force of nature".
The Shanghai Gesture is a 1941 American film noir directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Gene Tierney, Walter Huston, Victor Mature, and Ona Munson. It is based on a Broadway play of the same name by John Colton, which was adapted for the screen by Sternberg and produced by Arnold Pressburger for United Artists.
The Razor's Edge is a 1946 American drama film based on W. Somerset Maugham's 1944 novel of the same name. It stars Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, John Payne, Anne Baxter, Clifton Webb, and Herbert Marshall, with a supporting cast including Lucile Watson, Frank Latimore, and Elsa Lanchester. Marshall plays Somerset Maugham. The film was directed by Edmund Goulding.
Dorothy Spencer, known as Dot Spencer, was an American film editor with 75 feature film credits from a career that spanned more than 50 years. Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Film Editing on four occasions, she is remembered for editing three of director John Ford's best known movies, including Stagecoach (1939) and My Darling Clementine (1946), which film critic Roger Ebert called "Ford's greatest Western".
The Three Musketeers is a 1948 film directed by George Sidney, written by Robert Ardrey, and starring Gene Kelly and Lana Turner. It is a Technicolor adventure film adaptation of the classic 1844 novel The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.
Dragonwyck is a novel written by American author Anya Seton which was first published in 1944. It is the fictional story of the life of Miranda Wells and her abusive marriage to Nicholas Van Ryn, set against the historical background of the Patroon system, Anti-Rent Wars, the Astor Place Riots, and steamboat racing on the Hudson River.
That Lady in Ermine is a 1948 American Technicolor musical film directed by Ernst Lubitsch. The screenplay by Samson Raphaelson is based on the 1919 operetta Die Frau im Hermelin by Rudolph Schanzer and Ernst Welisch.
Glenn Langan was an American character actor on stage and films.
