Van Ryn is quite congenial when he arrives to collect Miranda and receive approval of the visit from her father, religious zealot Ephraim Wells (Walter Huston). Ephraim is somewhat dismayed to learn Van Ryn is something of a feudal lord, a patroon of his Dutch ancestors, who rules over his tenant farmers. “The land belongs to me,” Ryn says to quell Ephraim’s disbelief. Despite some misgivings, the father approves of his daughter’s stay at Dragonwyck. “Some good may come to you out of this venture after all.”
By contrast, when Miranda arrives at Dragonwyck, she finds Van Ryn peculiar in his habits, morose in disposition and cold toward his wife. Johanna (Vivienne Osborne) is treated condescendingly by her husband, with false concerns and subtle innuendos. Johanna is an unsympathetic character—plain, petulant, self-indulgent, often in bed and always eating. She especially likes cake, which Van Ryn serves to her often. Her love of sweets will prove her undoing.
During Miranda’s visit Johanna dies, and the young doctor, Jeff Turner (Glenn Langan), is baffled by the cause. He is enamored of Miranda, but she seems to have eyes only for Van Ryn and the two promptly marry. The marriage produces a baby boy who arrives with a defective heart and dies in a few days. Van Ryn is adamant, telling his new wife he doesn’t understand why his son died when she is still alive.
There have been subtle clues earlier that the master of Dragonwyck might be a sinister person with unknown motives. In one scene, cinematographer Miller lights the set in such a way that a foreground medium shot of Vincent Price is cast in darkness, with highlights around the edges of his head and body, and stark against a bright background. A dark, psychotic side gradually begins to emerge in Van Ryn’s treatment of Miranda.
Dr. Turner continues to visit Dragonwyck, especially that, now, Miranda has become sick. While he admits wishing to have been a better doctor when Johanna was ill, he has learned a few things in the meantime, particularly about oleander plants. When the first wife died, such a plant had been in her bedroom, the camera taking special note, and now there is one in Miranda’s——
Dragonwyck was Joseph L. Mankiewicz’ directorial début. It shows in the sagging pace at times, the sometimes tedious dialogue scenes and an overindulgence in Walter Huston’s role. Walter Huston is billed over Vincent Price, even though Vincent Price clearly shares equal importance with Gene Tierney—and utterly dominates the movie. Mankiewicz’ lethargy would reappear later in his handling of Suddenly Last Summer, through not the year after Dragonwyck when The Ghost and Mrs. Muir proved to be an all-around jewel of a film, as was All About Eve even later. Mankiewicz both directed and scripted all the films listed, except Suddenly Last Summer which he directed only.
An interesting memory: When I was a teenager and saw Dragonwyck for the first time, there was one line which sounded strangely out of place—and sexy, titillating for a youngster; I don’t think at that time I’d ever heard such a line in a film. It’s the scene where Magda the maid (Spring Byington) first shows Miranda to her room and asks if she likes it at Dragonwyck. (She’s just arrived, for heaven’s sake!) Miranda says she does like it. Magda replies that she knew she would, and that Miranda also likes other things, then adds, “You like the feel of silk sheets against your young body.”
The Music of Alfred Newman in Two Different Recordings
Strangely enough, while I’m somewhat at a loss to explain it, Alfred Newman is probably my least favorite of the “Magnificent Seven,” the greatest composers of Hollywood’s so-called Golden Age—in (my) order, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Bernard Herrmann, Franz Waxman, Max Steiner, Miklós Rózsa, Dimitri Tiomkin and then Alfred Newman. (Steiner and Rózsa are almost interchangeable.)
Dragonwyck is one of Newman’s better scores, perhaps because as a horror film it was a challenge, a genre a bit removed from his customary fare of musicals (My Gal Sal, Alexander’s Ragtime Band, State Fair), Westerns and adventure (The Gunfighter, The Black Swan, The Mark of Zorro), drama (The Grapes of Wrath, The Razor’s Edge) and the religious and biblical (The Keys of the Kingdom, The Greatest Story Ever Told).
Perhaps now it would be appropriate to discuss some of his movie music. On reacquaintance, the two Alfred Newman recordings I had in mind are less different than I had remembered, though different they are. It’s something of an adventure, nevertheless, to make comparisons.
The first and older of the two, made in 1974, was the third LP (the old ARL1-0184) in the RCA/Classic Film Score series, representing excerpts from ten films—all in forty-four minutes, so the average time devoted to individual scores borders on the criminal; only three tracks are longer than six minutes, most around three. Charles Gerhardt conducts the National Philharmonic Orchestra, an orchestra assembled from the cream of London’s five or six major orchestras especially for this soundtrack series.
One thought to “Dragonwyck (1946) with Gene Tierney”