'DRAGONWYCK'......THE GRANDEST AMERICAN GOTHIC

Dragonwyck (1946) still remains the ripest, richest, most feverishly melodramatic example of a lost movie genre.....the gothic romance. Gothics require three basic building blocks......an achingly vulnerable young heroine, naive to the evil ways of the world......a charismatic, mysterious and potentially dangerous Lord Of The Manor, wealthy, imperious, but head-over-heels for our leading lady.....and finally, the Lord Of The Manor's ancestral estate....massive, rambling, forbidding, loads of rooms and cavernous hallways stuffed with heavy furniture, thick curtains.... and dark, dark secrets. (You normally won't see this place on any of those 'keep it or flip it' real estate shows....in fact, filmmakers couldn't find any real houses of such overwhelming grandiosity. They usually had to be rendered by special effects miniatures ....the house will also feature its own name, also functioning as the title of the book or movie involved....)

             It took a considerable amount of old fashioned Hollywood studio showmanship (not to mention budget cash) to successfully bring a Gothic to life (other sterling acclaimed examples included Hitchcock's 'Rebecca' and Robert Stevenson's 'Jane Eyre')  20th Century Fox's Darryl F. Zanuck spared no expense for 'Dragonwyck', snapping up the rights to Anya Seton's best seller and allowing the movie to  became the first time directing assignment for celebrated screenwriter Joseph L. Mankiewicz. (the impressive start of a storied directorial career with films such as"All About Eve", "Cleopatra" and "Sleuth")

            With  machine-tooled studio efficiency that's become a long lost art, Zanuck put everything into place to make 'Dragonwyck' an instant classic of its genre......starting with:

             Gene Tierney Maybe the most exquisitely beautiful 1940's film star...... playing the dreaming-of-better-things, 1844 Connecticut farm girl who unwisely accepts a governess position from her mother's distant cousin, a wealthy Lord Of The Manor in New York's Hudson Valley. The only thing missing in her introduction is having her break into Belle's opening song from 'Beauty And The Beast'......

             Vincent Price....perfectly cast as the haughty aristocratic Nicholas Van Ryn, master of the vast Hudson Valley estate Dragonwyck and dictatorial 'Patroon' of his land holdings, tyrannizing and demanding tribute from the increasingly angry and rebellious tenant farmers who work his land.
              Over the course of the film's running time, Price, seemingly a courtly gentlemen, will reveal himself to Tierney (and to us, the audience) as a tortured, neurotic, diabolical monster, easily capable of murder.  For Price, this role became the signature template character for the rest of his long career.....the doomed, demented, uppercrust malefactor. A few decades later, he would hone it to perfection in Roger Corman's Edgar Allen Poe films.....but here's where it all began with his Nicholas Van Ryn, thwarted in his need for a male heir and  haunted by family ghosts as he descends into utter madness.

            The Creepy Household   According to the Gothic Playbook, these gloomy mansions must come equipped with their own equally wacky residents.....and Dragonwyck delivers, starting with wifty housekeeper Magda (Spring Byington). In a genius move, Mankiewicz has Byington deliver her portentous, threatening dialogue to Tierney as if she's on a slight giddy high. Magda talks like she's at least one pillow short of a double bed and Byington's  off-kilter performance and line readings skillfully set up the craziness to come.....
            And then there's Price's pathetic, unloved family members......his wife (Vivienne Osborne) a nagging, bedridden compulsive eater and his strange little daughter (Connie Marshall), also deprived of any affection and traumatized by the late night singing of the mansion's resident ghost. (This remarkable scene, plaintively acted by Connie Marshall, pushes the movie from Gothic into full fledged horror...)  To the BQ's regret, all three of these characters disappear in the film's second half, though only one of them has a legitimate reason for doing so.

            The Music  All gothics deserve a sumptuous, non-stop score and Alfred Newman, the studio's in-house maestro, serenades the film with a suitably grand symphonic soundscape, memorably haunting throughout....

            Hey, isn't that the guy.....part of the joy of Golden Age movies like this is their treasure trove of supporting actors.....Walter Huston as Tierney's stern, disapproving Evangelical father, a young Harry Morgan (yes, Col.Potter from "MASH") as the embittered leader of Price's tenant farmers, and an even younger Jessica Tandy as Tierney's feisty, crippled maid. (She touches off one the film's shocking moments, when Price expresses his Trumpian disgust for her disability....) We grinned knowingly at the sight of stalwart  Glenn Langan, in the thankless role of the benevolent rival for Tierney's affections...... a decade or so before he went on to scare Drive-In teenagers as the Amazing Colossal Man.

            Without going into the mechanics of the plot, we can assure you that all these elements smoothly blend together to make "Dragonwyck" the supreme American Gothic, the finest example of this genre........even throwing in a chunk of history in its depiction of the twilight of Dutch land barons ruling the Hudson Valley like feudal kings.  As one of the BQ's all time favorites, "Dragonwyck" receives an immediate 5 stars (*****),a guaranteed FIND OF FINDS.