Plot
Raised in 1844 Greenwich, Connecticut by her strait-laced low church parents, Ephraim and Abigail, Miranda Wells is a farm girl who often daydreams of a more romantic and luxurious life outside the farm. Miranda gets her opportunity when her mother receives a letter from their distant cousin Nicholas Van Ryn, a wealthy patroon in Hudson, New York. Miranda manages to convince her parents to let her go to Nicholas's estate of Dragonwyck manor as companion to his eight-year-old daughter Katrine. Over time, Miranda learns that Nicholas and his wife Johanna are estranged from each other and from their daughter. She also hears from the servants that the Van Ryn bloodline is cursed as only they can hear the harpsichord played by the ghost of Nicholas's great-grandmother Azilde whenever misfortune befalls the family.
Meeting an Anti-Rent supporter named Dr. Jeff Turner while secretly attending the tenant farmers' Kermesse with Katrine, Miranda witnesses Nicholas evicting a discontented farmer named Klaas Bleecker for refusing to participate in the annual rent-paying ceremony. A few days later, Klaas is accused of murder. Nicholas ungraciously assents 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 from eating cake.
Nicholas later confesses to Miranda that he was unhappy with his wife for not bearing him a son after being rendered infertile by the birth of Katrine. At the same time, he admits having romantic feelings for Miranda. Miranda returns the sentiment, but returns to Greenwich to put some distance between them. Two months later, Nicholas arrives and asks for her hand in marriage. Ephraim and Abigail reluctantly consent, and Miranda becomes pregnant not long after the wedding. Nicholas is thrilled by the news, though he quarrels with her over her simple faith in a God as the semi-feudal system of patroon land ownership and tenancy crumbled around him. However, when their baby is revealed to have a defective heart and dies immediately after his baptism, a heartbroken and embittered Nicholas withdraws alone to an attic room at Dragonwyck and becomes a drug addict. Peg O'Malley, Miranda's semi-lame loyal maid, fears for Miranda's life and calls upon Dr. Jeff Turner for help.
Turner arrives as Nicholas is suffering a psychotic episode characterized by auditory hallucinations and realizes that Johanna's death was not an accident; Nicholas poisoned Johanna with a sprig from an Oleander bush he'd sprinkled in her food.
Turner accuses Nicholas of murder and insinuates he is planning to murder Miranda as well. Insulted, Nicholas lunges at Turner and the two brawl on the floor with the younger Turner ultimately knocking Nicholas out. Peggy spirits Miranda away from Nicholas for her safety.
An increasingly volatile and dangerous Nicholas grabs a pistol and goes to the Kermesse grounds in an attempt to revive patroon authority by reliving old tenant rituals, but as if in answer to his fantasies as well as his worst fears, Turner arrives with the tenant farmers, the mayor, and the sheriff and arrests him for the murder of his wife. When he resists arrest and reaches for his gun, Nicholas is shot to death.
Miranda returns accompanied by Turner to her family in Greenwich. As they part, Turner repeats the exact words he spoke when he first tried unsuccessfully to woo Miranda: Can he see her again, he asks? I suppose so, says Miranda."Will a week be too soon? asks Dr. Turner, and the film ends. [6]
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." [7]
The film premiered at the Roxy Theatre in New York City on April 10, 1946, and grossed $109,000 in its first week. [1] [8] 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 . [9] [10]
It was the 37th top grosser in the United States and Canada for the year with theatrical rentals of $3 million. [2]
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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.
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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.
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. It was the last Hollywood film Sternberg ever completed: Howard Hughes fired him halfway through production of Macao in 1951, as well as from Jet Pilot the year prior.
On the Riviera is a 1951 Technicolor musical comedy film made by 20th Century Fox. Directed by Walter Lang and produced by Sol C. Siegel from a screenplay by Valentine Davies and Phoebe and Henry Ephron, it is the studio's fourth film based on the 1934 play The Red Cat by Rudolph Lothar and Hans Adler. This version stars Danny Kaye, Gene Tierney and Corinne Calvet, with Marcel Dalio, Henri Letondal and Sig Ruman.
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 a fictional story of the life of Miranda Wells and her abusive marriage to Nicholas Van Ryn, set against a 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.
The Iron Curtain is a 1948 American thriller film starring Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney, directed by William A. Wellman. It was the first film on the Cold War. The film was based on the memoirs of Igor Gouzenko. Principal photography was done on location in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada by Charles G. Clarke. The film was later re-released as Behind the Iron Curtain.
The Strange Woman is a 1946 American historical melodrama film directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and starring Hedy Lamarr, George Sanders and Louis Hayward. It is based on the 1941 novel of the same title by Ben Ames Williams. The screenplay was written by Ulmer and Hunt Stromberg, Originally released by United Artists, the film is now in the public domain.
Vivienne Osborne was an American stage and film actress known for her work in Broadway theatre and in silent and sound films.
Glenn Langan was an American character actor on stage and films.
