Dragonwyck Reviews

Gothic murder and madness are featured in this intelligent adaptation of Anya Seton's best-seller. The time is the middle 1840s, and Vincent Price is a feudal Dutchman who lives on a huge estate in New York's Hudson Valley and takes money from the tenant farmers. He's married to a woman he resents because she's been unable to bear him a son, and he must be content with a daughter. Tierney is a distant relative who arrives to take care of the daughter in a sort of au pair job. Price falls for Gene, and, unbeknownst to her, kills his wife. Now he proposes to the radiant Tierney, and she accepts. She gives birth to a son who dies almost immediately. Price takes to the attic, begins using drugs, and becomes psychologically unbalanced. (He wasn't that straight beforehand if he was willing to poison his wife.) Langan is a local doctor who realizes what's happening. He strives to help Tierney and falls for her. Langan discovers that Price murdered his late wife just as Price is about to get rid of Tierney as well. Price was sensational in the role of the madman, although it may have set the tone for many more parts like that in years to come, especially for AIP. Tierney was beautiful but not very convincing. Langan did better in this role than in many subsequent jobs. Great things were expected from him, but he never did realize his potential and wound up in cheapies like THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN and MUTINY IN OUTER SPACE. This was Mankiewicz's first directorial job and established him as a force in the movie business.