IT’S HERE AGAIN… THAT TINGLING ON THE BACK OF YOUR NECK BECAUSE THERE’S FOUL DEEDS AND MURDEROUS MACHINATIONS AFOOT…HOSTED BY SPEAKEASY… SHADOWS & SATIN… AND SILVER SCREENINGS… THE GREAT VILLAIN BLOGATHON OF 2015!

“Sometimes human places, create inhuman monsters.”
“• Stephen King, The Shining

“What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.”
“• Werner Herzog

“Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: ‘Here are our monsters,’ without immediately turning the monsters into pets.”
“• Jacques Derrida

DRAGONWYCK  (1946)

Vincent Price – “I don’t play monsters. I play men besieged by fate and out for revenge…”

Price could always play ONE of the most cultivated, enigmatic, and beguiling villains at any time…

Gene Tierney as Miranda Wells: “Nicholas – you do believe in God?”

Vincent Price as Nicholas Van Ryn: “I believe in myself, and I am answerable to myself! I will not live according to printed mottoes like the directions on a medicine bottle!”

The chemistry between Price and Tierney is authentic and captivating. When Miranda Wells feels humiliated by the gaggle of high-class snobbish debutantes because she’s from the wrong end of the river, not from the Hudson but the Connecticut River bottom, Nicholas tells her she’s better than all of them and asks her to dance. He seems so gentle and human, but he has a dark and villainous side!

DRAGONWYCK 1946 was Vincent Price’s 18th film. He had previously appeared in The House of the Seven Gables 1940 as Shelby Carpenter opposite Gene Tierney in Laura 1944 and Leave Her to Heaven 1945, right after he appeared as the cold-blooded Dr. Richard Cross in Shock 1946.

Produced by Ernst Lubitsch uncredited and overseen by one of my favs– Writer/Director Joseph L Mankiewicz. This Gothic & dark romance is based on the novel by Anya Seton, with cinematography by Arthur C. Miller (The Ox Bow Incident 1943, The Razor’s Edge 1946, Whirlpool 1949, The Prowler 1951), Art Direction by Lyle Wheeler and Russell Spencer, Set Direction by the great Thomas Little. The lighting alone is a mixture of noir chiaroscuro and offers dramatic shadings of the best classical elements of horror. The narrative speaks of familial secrets and twisted vengefulness, not unlike Lewis Allen’s spooky debut masterpiece, The Uninvited 1944.

Added to the moodiness is the eerily haunting score by Alfred Newman with Orchestral arrangements by Edward B Powell. Edited by the keen eyes of Dorothy Spencer (Stagecoach 1939, The House Across the Bay 1940, Lifeboat 1944, The Ghost and Mrs.Muir, The Snake Pit 1948).

Costumes by Rene Hubert and Makeup by Ben Nye. The film bears shades of  Hitchcock/de Maurier’s Rebecca 1940 and Robert Stevenson’s/Charlotte Brontë Jane Eyre 1943. Even a bit of de Maurier’s tautly suspenseful My Cousin Rachel 1952 directed by Henry Koster and starring Olivia de Havilland and Richard Burton. The book is a hell of a good read if you enjoy Gothic melodrama.

Gene Tierney and Vincent Price reunite after having appeared in Otto Preminger’s memorable film noir masterpiece, Laura, in 1944.

Here-Gene Tierney plays Miranda Wells, and Walter Huston is her devoutly Christian working-class father-Ephram Wells.

This scene foreshadows the dangerous path Miranda is willing to wander through, as she starts to break free of her puritanical upbringing and reach for a life of being a free spirit. Believing that Nicholas represents that freedom. But there is a hint of evil that her father can sense.

Vincent Price once again manifests a passionate yet conflicted antagonist Nicholas Van Ryn with a magnetism you cannot escape, yet you may despise his cruelty and his self-indulgent murderous arrogance.

Glenn Langan is the handsome yet vanilla Dr Jeff Turner, Anne Revere adds a depth of nurture as Abigail Wells-Miranda’s mother who is weary of her daughter’s intentions to marry such a powerful man.

Spring Byington is one of the maids-Magda. Connie Marshall is the young melancholy Katrina Van Ryn, Henry Morgan is Bleeker one of the farmers who challenges Van Ryn and fights back against the antiquated laws.

Vivienne Osborne plays wife Johanna Van Ryn. Jessica Tandy gives a marvelous performance as Miranda’s maid the feisty Peggy O’Malley. Trudy Marshall is Elizabeth Van Borden. Reinhold Schunzel is Count de Grenier, Jane Nigh is Tabitha. Ruth Ford is Cornelia Van Borden, David Ballard is Obadiah. Scott Elliot is Tom Wells and Boyd Irwin is Tompkins.

DRAGONWYCK 1946 is a Gothic suspense melodrama in the grand classical style. It even brushes against the edges of the classic horror film, not only because of the way it’s filmed, but there are certain disturbing elements to the story. The shadows and darkness that are part of the psychological climate work are almost reminiscent of a Val Lewton piece. There’s even a pale reference to that of a ghost story that is concealed, or I should say unrevealed, with the first Mrs.Van Ryn’s spirit playing the harpsichord, and the eerie phantom chords that add to the mystery and gloom that hang over the manor house.

With swells of atmospheric tension and darkly embroidered romance, there are just the right tinges of shadows and danger. This lush and fervent tale combines tragic Gothic romantic melodrama with the legitimate themes of social class struggle wrapped within dark secrets and suspense.

As always, Price conveys tragic pathos even as the story’s villain. He is a man who manifests layers upon layers of feeling: brooding, charming, sensual, intellectual, menacing, passionate, conflicted, self-loathing, and egomaniacal all at once.

One of my favorite roles will always be his embodiment of Corman/Poe’s Roderick Usher in House of Usher 1960.

The film also offers us the sublime acting skill and divine beauty of Gene Tierney as the heroine or damsel in peril, a simple farm girl living near Greenwich, Connecticut. She dreams of the finer things in life, swept up by the allure of a fairy tale existence, only to find out that her dream has become a nightmare.

Once Miranda receives a letter inviting her to come and visit Dragonwyck, she is perhaps at once young and naive when she arrives at the austere place to be a companion to Van Ryn’s despondent daughter Katrine, a lonely sort of isolated child. First triangulated by Van Ryn’s over-indulgent wife, Johanna, after her death, the two begin a whirlwind romance that leads Miranda to marry the imposing Nicholas Van Ryn.

Almost in the style of a Universal monster movie, the central focus is the mysterious mansion, surrounded by volatile thunderstorms and restless villagers who want to take action against their oppressors. The film works as a period piece, seeming to possess an added heaviness due to the provincial settings and underpinnings of class unrest, which lends itself to the bleak mood.

DRAGONWYCK’s villain or very human boogeyman is the inimitable and urbane Vincent Price, who holds sway over the locals as the patroon—lord of the land, as well as master of all he surveys and, of course, his new wife. Driven by his obsession with having a son, he is a brooding dark figure whose descent into drug-addicted madness comes to light like a demon who has escaped from a bottle.

Van Ryn is vain and contemptuous, scornful, condescending, and cruel. Eventually driven by his immense pride, love, and desire to murder his first wife, who is in the way of his ultimate legacy.

DRAGONWYCK is an interesting film that belies any one genre. As I’ve pointed out, beyond the dark melodramatic suspense elements, it’s every bit a horror film. It is also Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s directorial debut.

It was set during the nineteenth century when parts of New York were still founded as feudal estates. It’s a fascinating portrayal of the history of the 19th-century Upstate New York Dutch colonies and their struggles between the rich and poor against the reigning yet dying tradition of aristocratic rule over the small family farms, which were overseen by Patroons. A Patroon owns the large land grants along the Hudson River. They are descendants of the original Dutch patrons, “and they’re terribly rich and elegant.” –Miranda.

Yet, as in the case of Nicholas, they can be brutal and self-opportunistic landlords who collect the rent from these hard-working, exploited, and poor farmers.

This is what first impresses Miranda about Nicholas, his power and station in life. Her sister Tibby tells her she’s not anxious to leave home.

Miranda says, “That’s not fair, you know that I love you and Pa, all of you, and my home, it’s just that I try to be like everyone else, and want what I’m supposed to want. But then I start thinking about people I’ve never known and places I’ve never been. Maybe if the letter hadn’t come, I’d. Oh, I don’t know, I must be loony.”

Nicholas Van Ryn is a brooding and powerful aristocratic patroon who runs all matters with an iron hand. In the Nineteenth Century, the upstate New York counties were still dealing with a system run by these Patroons. There began a social uprising of the surrounding farmers who wanted more power over their land and a rule that would abolish the aristocracy that was a tribute to a dying past practice. Soon there would be an end to these ruling Estates.

As seen in Van Ryn’s maniacal demonstration of his being seated in an elaborate throne, he remains poised while collecting the farmer’s rent. Henry Morgan plays the tough and prideful farmer Klaus, who has brought nothing with him. “Not rent– nor tribute.”

When Nicholas’s first wife cannot bear him a son as heir to carry on the Van Ryn name, the wealthy and wicked Nicholas Van Ryn secretly plans to poison her with the help of an Oleander plant. Setting his sights on the younger, more beautiful cousin Miranda.

He then invites Miranda (Gene Tierney just naturally exudes a uniquely dreamy-eyed splendor) to come and visit Dragonwyck. She is an innocent girl fascinated by the urbane Nicholas but by the film’s climax, she becomes entrapped in the foreboding and bleak atmosphere of Dragonwyck, a place of secrets, sadness, and insanity.

Miranda is so taken with the idea of dancing the waltz and how fine a gentleman cousin Nicholas seems. Her father always reads passages from the Bible, and she hungers for adventure. Miranda craves the freedom to experience a better life.

Vincent Price is incredibly handsome as Nicholas. Mysterious, his deep blue eyes crystallize through the stark black and white film. He has a strong jawline, and possesses vitality”¦ at first, he is so charming. Nicholas-“The Breeze must feel wonderful indeed on a face as beautiful as yours, I imagine.”

The first meal at Dragonwyck is a grotesque scene in which his wife Johanna (Vivienne Osborne) shows herself to be a lugubrious sow, a glutton, and a spoiled child who now bores and disgusts her husband. He tells Miranda, “To my wife, promptness at meals is the greatest human virtue.” 

Nicholas is already starting to reveal his cutting tongue by commenting on how his wife overeats and is not refined—a hint of his cruel nature.

At dinner, Johanna begins to nag him about bringing home the pastries from New York, the Napoleons, she appears to be a glutton, and though very pretty, a most unattractive portrayal of her character is given for the narrative’s purpose of Nicholas justifiably ridding himself of her so that he might pursue Miranda. In contrast to Johanna’s piggishness, Miranda is given a clear bowl of broth for her supper. The scene is set up so we feel a bit of sympathy toward Nicholas.

As Johanna shoves another bonbon into her mouth…

Cinematographer Arthur C. Miller frames the shot as Johanna is placed in between Nicholas and Miranda. His wife Johanna appears like a fairy tale character–the over-exaggerated plump wife who gorges herself on sweets while Nicholas and Miranda talk of love and loss. Miranda is wildly curious. He is withdrawn and pensive.

Nicholas plays the harpsichord. Miranda listens contentedly and then asks who the woman in the painting is. He tells her it’s his grandmother Aziel –“That’s a strange name” she looks like a frightened child.”

Miranda asks him to tell her more about his grandmother. Was it love at first sight?

Nicholas-“No Van Ryn does anything at first sight.” Miranda-“Oh, but she must have been happy to live here.” Miranda smiles, her face glowing. Nicholas adds, “As it turned out it didn’t matter, soon after her son was born she died. She brought this harpsichord with her from her home. She played it always.”

Johanna: “If you listen to the servants, they’ll have you believe she still does!” she laughs. But Nicholas quickly turns around to look at her. A dark shadow creeps along his brow, and his eyes raise.

Nicholas-“Fortunately, we don’t listen to either the servants or their superstitions.”

Magda (Spring Byington) tells Miranda about Nicholas’ grandmother from New Orleans, the woman in the portrait. That his grandfather never loved her, he never wanted her at all. He wanted their son. he kept her from him… He forbade her to sing and play. He broke her heart. And drove her.” Magda stops short”. “She prayed for disaster to come to the Van Ryns and she swore that when it came she’d always be here to sing and play”¦ She killed herself in this room.”

Magda asks-“Miss Wells, why have you come here? Do you think Katrine is in need of a companion? Miranda answers her, “Well, that would be for her father and her mother to decide.”
Magda says, “Don’t you think she’s in need of a father and a mother”¦ that was a silly question wasn’t it?”

The meddling maid pierces Miranda’s innocence with her honesty like venom–causing a bit of shock on Miranda’s face that usually seems as tranquil as a quiet lake of sparkling water.

“You like it here?” Miranda answers–“Of course, I do.” Magda comments- “Course you do, you like being waited on, I could see tonight it was the first time. You like peaches out of season. You like the feel of silk sheets against your young body. Then one day, with all your heart, you’ll wish you’d never come to Dragonwyck.”

The handsome young Dr. Turner (Glenn Langan) comes to take care of Johanna, who has taken to her bed.

He and Miranda sit and talk by the fire. He tries to imply that living at Dragonwyck has changed her, he tells her that the last time he met her he felt like they had so much in common. “Frankly right now I doubt you have any idea about the slightest thing to talk to me about.”

Johanna’s illness gets worse, of course, we know Nicholas has poisoned her. Lying in bed, she tells him that sometimes she thinks he hates her, but asks if they can go away together once she’s better. He says yes because he knows she’ll never get better. In fact, she will never leave that bed alive.

Continue reading “Dark Patroons & Hat Box Killers: 2015 The Great Villain Blogathon!” →