The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (film)

Last updated
The Dark at the Top of the Stairs
Poster of the movie The Dark at the Top of the Stairs.jpg
Theatrical poster for the film
Directed by Delbert Mann
Screenplay by Harriet Frank Jr.
Irving Ravetch
Based on The Dark at the Top of the Stairs
by William Inge
Produced by Michael Garrison
Starring Robert Preston
Dorothy McGuire
Eve Arden
Angela Lansbury
Shirley Knight
Lee Kinsolving
Cinematography Harry Stradling Sr.
Edited by Folmar Blangsted
Music by Max Steiner [1]
Production
company
Release dates
  • September 22, 1960 (1960-09-22)(Premiere-New York City) [1]
  • October 8, 1960 (1960-10-08)(US) [1]
Running time
123 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The Dark at the Top of the Stairs is a 1960 American drama film directed by Delbert Mann and starring Robert Preston and Dorothy McGuire. Shirley Knight garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress and Lee Kinsolving was nominated for a Golden Globe Award as Best Supporting Actor. Knight was also nominated for two Golden Globes. Mann's direction was nominated for a Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing in a Feature Film. The film was based on the Tony Award-nominated 1957 play of the same name by William Inge.

Contents

Plot

During Prohibition in Oklahoma, Rubin Flood is a successful harness and saddle salesman. However, with the advent of the automobile, his job is becoming more difficult. He considers his wife Cora demanding and an over-protective mother. When he learns his company is closing, he is unable to face her, and stops at a pharmacy to partake of "medicinal" alcohol. Cora is out with her daughter Reenie, buying a party dress.

Rubin cannot bring himself to tell Cora he has lost his job, and they about how much Cora has spent on Reenie's dress. The couple's younger son Sonny is being bullied at school. Sonny has a fear of the dark. Determined to get him to stand up for himself, Rubin attempts to teach him to box. While sparring, he inadvertently strikes the boy too hard. An incensed Cora accuses Rubin of having an affair with Mavis Pruitt, a local widow. Rubin slaps Cora and storms out of the house. Reenie, having witnessed the row, runs into the street, causing a motorist to swerve and strike a tree. The driver, Sammy Golden, is relatively unhurt, and he and Reenie become attracted to one another.

Cora calls her older sister Lottie to tell her that Rubin hit her. Rubin, still slightly intoxicated, shows up at Mavis's beauty salon, also her home, where he is seen by two town gossips. Rubin tells her Cora has ignored him for years, and while he has remained faithful, he desires Mavis. When she rejects his halfhearted advances, Rubin falls asleep on her sofa.

Days later, Lottie and her husband come for dinner. Cora asks if she and the children can stay with them, then Rubin returns home to apologize. The two gossips tell Cora about Mavis, which re-ignites the argument. He accuses Cora of rejecting him sexually, and she argues that she is preoccupied with worrying about money. Reenie's friend Flirt and her boyfriend arrive, with a date for Reenie, Sammy. Lottie's bigotry is revealed when she suggests that Cora and Rubin might not want to allow Reenie to accompany a Jew to the party.

Sammy and Reenie kiss at the party, but Harry Ralston and his wife berate her for bringing a Jew to the country club, where they are not allowed. Embarrassed, Sammy and Reenie leave. Sammy drops Reenie at home, where she finds Rubin on the sofa. He confesses that he has lost his job and does not know how to tell Cora. The following morning, they learn Sammy has attempted suicide. Reenie rushes to the hospital, telling him that she does not care what people think.

Cora promises Sonny to stop being so over-protective so he can grow into a responsible adult, then receives a call to say that Sammy has died. She heads over to Mavis's salon, where she pretends to be a customer, before revealing that she is Rubin's wife. Mavis confesses that she has been in love with Rubin for years, but that Rubin has always been faithful to Cora, and also reveals that Rubin has lost his job.

Rubin gets a new job as a salesman at an oil drilling equipment company. He returns home to find that Cora has sent Reenie to Lottie's for a few days to recover from Sammy's death. Cora and Rubin commit to paying more attention to each other's needs. As they embrace, Sonny returns home with a friend, one of his former tormentors from school. Rubin pays for the two boys to go to a movie, then follows his wife up to the bedroom.

Cast

Production

Warner Bros. announced in January 1960 that it would be producing a film version of Inge's play, directed by Delbert Mann and starring Robert Preston and Dorothy McGuire. [2] During rehearsals for the production, Mann used the same process that he had used since his first film, Marty , in 1955. First, the cast read through the entire script, then they rehearsed the entire screenplay on set prior to filming. [3] The film went into production in late January, [1] but by the beginning of March, an actor's strike was looming, scheduled for March 7. Warner Bros. shifted to seven-days-a-week production schedules to complete filming before the strike. [4] In mid-July, it was announced that The Dark at the Top of the Stairs would headline the launch of the fall season, [5] and it opened at New York's Radio City Music Hall on September 22, 1960. [1]

Reception

Variety provided a favorable review, noting that The Dark at the Top of the Stairs was "well cast and persuasively acted." [6] However, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called it a "flawed adaptation of the original stage play." [3] The Film Bulletin described the film a "rather absorbing drama, with goodly shares of humor, warmth, and tragedy," though Preston's performance needed more "humility and tenderness" and Mann's direction, though professional, focused on "certain scenes singularly, rather than integrating them into the whole." [7] Motion Picture Daily provided another positive review while criticizing Mann's direction, writing that he "failed to draw out some of the most vital scenes all the urgency and pathos that Inge had wrote into them." [8]

Shirley Knight earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Reenie Flood. [9] Knight also received Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture and New Star of the Year - Actress. Lee Kinsolving also received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor. [10] Mann was nominated for a Directors Guild of America Award for "outstanding directorial achievement." [11] The film was voted one of the ten best of the year in 1960 by the National Board of Review. [12] [13] Eve Arden's performance rated among the five best of the year by supporting actresses, according to The Film Daily's poll of over 1,800 critics. [3]

Related Research Articles

<i>Room at the Top</i> (1959 film) 1959 film by Jack Clayton

Room at the Top is a 1959 British film based on the 1957 novel of the same name by John Braine. It was adapted by Neil Paterson, directed by Jack Clayton, and produced by John and James Woolf. The film stars Laurence Harvey, Simone Signoret, Heather Sears, Donald Wolfit, Donald Houston, and Hermione Baddeley.

<i>The Dark Angel</i> (1935 film) 1935 film by Sidney Franklin

The Dark Angel is a 1935 film that tells the story of three childhood friends, Kitty, Alan, and Gerald who come of age in England during the First World War. The script was written by Lillian Hellman and Mordaunt Shairp, adapted from the play by Guy Bolton. It was directed by Sidney Franklin, produced by Samuel Goldwyn, and released by United Artists. A silent film version of the same play, also produced by Goldwyn, was released in 1925 and is now a lost film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maurice Kaufmann</span> English actor

Maurice Harington Kaufmann was a British actor of stage, film and television, who specialised in whodunits and horror films, from 1954 to 1981, when he retired.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Norma Talmadge</span> American actress

Norma Marie Talmadge was an American actress and film producer of the silent era. A major box-office draw for more than a decade, her career reached a peak in the early 1920s, when she ranked among the most popular idols of the American screen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Billie Whitelaw</span> British actress (1932–2014)

Billie Honor Whitelaw was an English actress. She worked in close collaboration with Irish playwright Samuel Beckett for 25 years and was regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of his works. She was also known for her portrayal of Mrs. Baylock, the demonic nanny in the 1976 horror film The Omen.

<i>Mister 880</i> 1950 film by Edmund Goulding

Mister 880 is a 1950 American light-hearted romantic drama film directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Burt Lancaster, Dorothy McGuire and Edmund Gwenn, about an amateurish counterfeiter who counterfeits only one dollar bills, and manages to elude the Secret Service for ten years. The film is based on the true story of Emerich Juettner, known by the alias Edward Mueller, an elderly man who counterfeited just enough money to survive, was careful where and when he spent his fake dollar bills, and was therefore able to elude authorities for ten years, despite the poor quality of his fakes, and despite growing interest in his case.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Beavers</span> American actress (1900–1962)

Louise Beavers was an American film and television actress. From the 1920s until 1960, she appeared in dozens of films and two hit television shows. She was most often cast in the roles of a maid, servant or slave.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruth Roman</span> American actress (1922–1999)

Ruth Roman was an American actress of film, stage, and television.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kathleen Quinlan</span> American actress

Kathleen Denise Quinlan Abbott is an American film and television actress. She is best known for her Golden Globe-nominated performance in the 1977 film of the novel I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, and her Golden Globe and Academy Award-nominated role in the 1995 film Apollo 13, along with many roles in other feature films, television movies and series, in a career spanning almost five decades.

<i>Girls! Girls! Girls!</i> 1962 film

Girls! Girls! Girls! is a 1962 Golden Globe-nominated American musical comedy film starring Elvis Presley as a penniless Hawaii-based fisherman who loves his life on the sea and dreams of owning his own boat. "Return to Sender", which reached No. 2 on the Billboard pop singles chart, is featured in the film. The film opened at #1 on the Variety box office chart and finished the year at #19 on the year-end list of the top-grossing films of 1962. The film earned $2.6 million at the box office.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shirley Knight</span> American actress (1936–2020)

Shirley Knight Hopkins was an American actress who appeared in more than 50 feature films, television films, television series, and Broadway and Off-Broadway productions in her career, playing leading and character roles. She was a member of the Actors Studio.

<i>The Postman Always Rings Twice</i> (1946 film) 1946 film by Tay Garnett

The Postman Always Rings Twice is a 1946 American film noir based on the 1934 novel of the same name by James M. Cain. This adaptation of the novel features Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn, Leon Ames, and Audrey Totter. It was directed by Tay Garnett. The musical score was written by George Bassman and Erich Zeisl.

<i>Elmer Gantry</i> (film) 1960 drama film directed by Richard Brooks

Elmer Gantry is a 1960 American drama film about a confidence man and a female evangelist selling religion to small-town America. Adapted by director Richard Brooks, the film is based on the 1927 novel of the same name by Sinclair Lewis, and stars Burt Lancaster, Jean Simmons, Arthur Kennedy, Shirley Jones and Patti Page.

The 18th Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film for 1960, were held on March 16, 1961.

What's Done in the Dark is a play written and directed by American playwright Tyler Perry. The show first opened in September 2006. The play is a mixture of comedy, drama, and music, set in a hospital emergency room, and focuses on two nurses, one of whom is a single mother and the other of whom is having an affair with a doctor, and an eccentric hypochondriac patient who is in fact, Mr. Brown. The DVD was released on February 12, 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cher filmography</span>

Throughout her acting career, Cher has mainly starred in comedy, drama, and romance films. She has appeared in eighteen films, including two as a cameo. She has also appeared in one starring theater role, one video game role, numerous television commercials and directed a piece of the motion picture If These Walls Could Talk in 1996 and some of her music videos of the Geffen-era in late 1980s and in early 1990s. Cher has starred in various international television commercials, as well as high-profile print advertising for Lori Davis (1992). Before she started her film career, she had a couple of hits in the 1960s, as a solo artist, and with her ex-husband Sonny Bono as the couple Sonny & Cher.

<i>The Petal on the Current</i> 1919 film

The Petal on the Current is a lost 1919 American drama film directed by Tod Browning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">McQueen family</span> Fictional family on Hollyoaks, created 2006

The McQueen family is a fictional family in the Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks. The family first appeared in 2006 and the family have been involved in a number of the show's most high-profile storylines, most notably John Paul McQueen's affair with Craig Dean ; Jacqui McQueen's whirlwind relationship with Tony Hutchinson ; Myra McQueen's long-lost son Niall Rafferty's revenge on his family by holding them hostage in an abandoned church and blowing it up, ultimately killing his half-sister Tina Reilly ; Theresa McQueen's pregnancy by her cousin Carmel McQueen's fiancé Calvin Valentine and later shooting him dead on their wedding day; Mercedes McQueen's affair with her fiancé Riley Costello's father Carl ; being kidnapped by Riley's grandfather Silas Blissett, Jacqui coping with the death of her husband Rhys Ashworth in a bus crash, learning that he had been having an affair with Cindy Cunningham and that he got Sinead O'Connor pregnant; Mercedes stalking Mitzeee and stabbing herself and framing her; Carmel's facial disfigurement; Myra faking her own death to escape her daughter Mercedes' evil husband, Dr. Paul Browning ; Mercedes killing her husband Doctor Browning by striking him over the head with a shovel; John Paul's male rape at the hands of his pupil Finn O'Connor ; the train crash which ultimately killed Carmel; Mercedes faking her death to help Grace Black get revenge on Freddie Roscoe ; Theresa donating her kidney to Nico Blake ; Porsche and Cleo McQueen's sexual abuse at the hands of their mother Reenie McQueen's fiancé Pete Buchanan ; Phoebe McQueen's murder in hospital by the Gloved Hand Killer; the stillbirth of Mercedes' baby Gabriel; John Paul's transgender boss Sally St. Claire being revealed as his biological father, Mercedes being framed for drugs by Joanne Cardsley, Celine McQueen and Diego Salvador Martinez Hernandez De La Cruz's sham wedding for money; Celine being murdered by her ex-boyfriend and serial killer Cameron Campbell after discover he causes the fire at the fair on Halloween 2016; Hunter affair with his teacher Neeta Kaur, leads his feud with his fiance Mac Nightingale ; Prince marriage to Lily Drinkwell and Breda turning out to be a serial killer.

The Dark at the Top of the Stairs is a 1957 play by William Inge about family conflicts during the early 1920s in a small Oklahoma town. It was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play in 1958 and was made into a film of the same name in 1960. It is the most autobiographical of all Inge plays.

Arthur Lee Kinsolving Jr., known professionally as Lee Kinsolving, was an American film, theater and television actor. In 1960, Kinsolving was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor at the 18th Golden Globe Awards for his role as Sammy Goldenbaum in the film The Dark at the Top of the Stairs.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs: Detail View". American Film Institute. Archived from the original on September 17, 2016. Retrieved April 17, 2016.
  2. "This Is Your Product". Film Bulletin. January 18, 1960. p. 27. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
  3. 1 2 3 David C. Tucker (2011). Eve Arden. McFarland. p. 128. ISBN   978-0786488100.
  4. "Studios Rush To Beat Actor Strike Deadline". Motion Picture Daily. March 1, 1960. pp. 1, 7. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
  5. "Music Hall Premiere Announced for "Stairs"". Motion Picture Daily. July 19, 1960. p. 2. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
  6. Variety Staff. "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs". Variety. Archived from the original on June 20, 2022.
  7. "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs". Film Bulletin. September 19, 1960. p. 18. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
  8. "Review: The Dark at the Top of the Stairs". Motion Picture Daily. September 14, 1960. p. 3. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
  9. "The 33rd Academy Awards: 1961". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on April 15, 2016. Retrieved April 17, 2016.
  10. "Winners & Nominees 1961". Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Archived from the original on April 3, 2016. Retrieved April 17, 2016.
  11. "Six Films Nominated For Directorial Awards". Motion Picture Daily. October 20, 1960. p. 3. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
  12. "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs: Notes". Turner Classic Movies. Archived from the original on October 24, 2016. Retrieved October 23, 2016.
  13. "'Sons and Lovers' Named '60's Best". Motion Picture Daily. December 27, 1960. p. 3. Retrieved September 5, 2017.