Wonderful character development!

Very disappointing...

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

As Good As It Gets

In 1844, the Wells family lives in a small farm of their own in Greenwich, Connecticut and the sons and daughters have a rigid discipline and religious education from the patriarch Ephraim Wells (Walter Huston). When his wife Abigail Wells (Anne Revere) receives a letter from her wealthy distant cousin Nicholas "Nick" Van Ryn (Vincent Price) inviting one of her daughters to live with his wife Johanna Van Ryn (Vivienne Osborne) and him nursing their daughter Katrine Van Ryn (Connie Marshall), the naive Miranda Wells (Gene Tierney) gets excited with the perspective of traveling. Her mother convinces Ephraim to let her go and Miranda travels with her father to New York. They meet Nick and they learn that he is a patroon of farmers at the Hudson Valley. Then Miranda travels to the Dragonwyck mansion where she is introduced to the voracious Johanna and the sweet Katrine and to the housekeeper Magda (Spring Byington). Miranda also meets Dr. Jeff Turner (Glenn Langan), who is a sort of leader of the farmers that work for Nicholas, in a party and befriends him. Soon she notes that Katrine is neglected by her parents. When Johanna gets mysteriously ill and dies, Miranda returns home. But the atheistic Nick visits her family to propose to marry her. Now Miranda's dream comes true and she gets married with him and moves to Dragonwyck. Will they live happily ever after?"Dragonwyck" is the debut of Joseph L. Mankiewicz as director. The screenplay also by Mankiewicz is based on a successful novel by Anya Seton with modification in the ending. The cinematography By Arthur C. Miller and the music score by Alfred Newman call the attention of the viewer since the very beginning. The Gothic romance with supernatural touches shows the confrontation between an atheistic arrogant man and his naive religious wife. The performance of Vincent Price is top-notch and the gorgeous Gene Tierney performs a naive character but with strong principles. Walter Huston, despite a secondary role, is also amazing. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "O Solar de Dragonwyck" ("The Manor of Dragonwyck")

I've always enjoyed performances by Vincent Price, Gene Tierney and Walter Houston. The movie seemed to be moving along quite well, creating some mystery and lots of suspense. The daughter of the patroon (Vincent Price) seemed to have a few hidden issues, thinking her parents not loving her and in turn, she not able to love them. The new governess, upon her arrival starts to notice strange behavior for ALL the residents of Dragonwyck, consequently being warned by the servant of the house (Spring Byington). Upon the arrival of Jessica Tandy, the crippled lady-in-waiting for the new governess and bride of the patroon, we find out his distaste for deficiencies in humans. In this case a crippled female. This is immediately noticed by Gene Tierney. As she tries in-vain to deal with her husband, she becomes pregnant with his son. The son is born with heart problems, eventually dying soon after birth. The father, Vincent Price, Takes to himself for while. But, as I was enjoying this particular film, I couldn't help but notice the unexplained absence of the patroon's daughter Katrine (Connie Marshall) and that of the role played by Spring Byington. Why is there no seemingly good explanation for these absences? Still, all-in-all, it was entertaining.

Walter Huston is billed over Vincent Price in Dragonwyck, but Mr. Price has much more screen time and prominence in this film. Neither, however, manages to distract our attention from the angelic presence of Gene Tierney or to upstage the saturnine wit of Spring Byington as a domestic.The story has been compromised by the production code, so we do not see the drug addiction of Price's character and what causes his deranged behavior. But the horror is still there, creeping just beneath the surface. Still, too many of the hideous, more dramatic aspects of the narrative are left to the viewers' imaginations, and in this case, we are expected to make quite a few assumptions about the characters and the true nature of their interactions. As a result, visiting a madman's home becomes what it should never have been: a somewhat dull movie.

Dragonwyck is directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz who also adapts the screenplay from the Anya Seton novel of the same name. It stars Vincent Price, Gene Tierney, Walter Huston, Glenn Langan, Anne Revere, Jessica Tandy and Spring Byington. Music is by Alfred Newman and cinematography by Arthur C. Miller. Connecticut farm girl Miranda Wells (Tierney), is recruited by her aristocratic patroon cousin Nicholas Van Ryan (Price) to be governess to his young daughter at his Hudson Valley mansion. Originally thinking it to be a new step up in life, Miranda finds that Nicholas and the Dragonwyck mansion have dark secrets to tell. Bluebeard and Rebecca come swirling together in this neatly constructed Gothic thriller. It has the requisite eeriness about it, the period atmosphere is strong and Price turns in a wonderfully sinister performance as the tormented Van Ryan. Narratively there's other interests besides the core story of "mad love and dark secrets", such as observations on faith and class structure issues, while the patroon land owner system forms a most historically interesting backdrop. PCA presence means that the spicy aspects of the story (drug use and poisoning) are sketched in grey, but we know what's going on and film doesn't suffer for it. It takes a while to really get going, for the drama to take a hold, and the light dusting's of the supernatural hint at what a better film it could have been. Yet this is comfortably recommended to Gothic thriller fans and fans of Price and Tierney especially. 7.5/10