Genteel Gothika
Dragonwyck (1946)
by Paulette Reynolds
October 6, 2014
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Screenplay: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Starring Gene Tierney, Vincent Price, Glenn Langan, Anne Revere, Walter Huston, Spring Byington, Harry Morgan, and Jessica Tandy
Sometimes viewing a particular movie is like visiting an old friend that we haven't seen in a long time, where a different aspect of the film's personality suddenly reveals itself. I recently caught 20th Century-Fox's Dragonwyck on TCM. Since it's one of my favorite films of the 1940s period, it brought back memories of past viewings - After all, it's a film that has a lot going for it: a plot involving murder, drug addiction, forbidden longings, class and religious warfare, and of course, the unusual pairing of Gene Tierney and Vincent Price as a romantic couple.
But the movie's central theme appeared to have shifted for me, from one of a young woman seeking personal happiness in dangerous places, to a woman testing the limits of societal expectations in the mid-1800s. This sad, melodramatic story centers on Miranda, a young farmer's daughter - naive and ambitious, hungering for a different life beyond the cornfields. Miranda's father, Ephraim, the family's rigid patriarch, uses religion to subdue his family, contentedly quoting scripture as a way of keeping an emotional distance from the womenfolk and children. She sees her mother, Abigail, stoically resigned to her life, with only her face hinting at another internal monologue, and is more determined than ever not to be constrained in this one-dimensional world of her parents creation.
As if in answer to her prayers, her wealthy cousin, Nicholas offers her an opportunity to act as governess to his daughter, Katrine, on the Van Ryn estate. His amusement at Ephraim's ultra-conservative values allows Miranda her first view of another approach to life, capturing her heart at his first contemptuous grin. No sooner than Miranda can say "Golly!" at seeing Dragonwyck than circumstances begin to drive home the old adage, "Be careful what you wish for."
Miranda's first night strikes a tone of creepy, as she meets Nicholas's wife, a foodaholic, and Katrine, a mournful child just this side of clinically depressed. It's a long way from a the farm, all right. Yet Magda, the housekeeper (played with eerie madness by Spring Byington), nails the young governess's past and future as she observes, "You like being waited on - I could see tonight it was your first time. You like peaches out of season. You like the feel of silk sheets against your young body... And one day you'll wish with all your heart you'd never come to Dragonwyck!" As time passes, Miranda realizes that her infatuation with the opulent lifestyle includes enjoying the attentions from the master of the mansion.
Miranda witnesses another worldview during a conflict between the 'Patroon' Van Ryn and tenant farmer Klaas Bleeker, (the best performance of veteran character actor Harry Morgan's career), who refuses to acknowledge the dying political Manor system - or Nicholas as his Patroon. During a meeting with the tenants, Nicholas imperiously snarls, "Just what is it he wants you to want so passionately? It has an assortment of highly romantic names - the rights of man, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and such - and all those will be yours with the titles to a few acres of soil. Believe me, my welfare does not depend upon you. Rather, you depend upon it. But my rents and tributes and my responsibilities are hereditary - the symbols of a way of life to which I have been born, and in which I shall continue to live.' Much like her father's passionate beliefs, Miranda shrugs off Nichola's narrow vision, easily separating the message from the man.
The third perspective that Miranda is introduced to is held by Dr. Jeff Turner (Glenn Langan), a sensitive physician, whose democratic principles strike a happy balance between the opposing philosophies of her conservative father and imperious cousin. While the mysterious death of Johanna Van Ryn and a family closet chock-full of skeletons might appear to be the main focus of Dragonwyck, the over-riding belief systems of Ephraim, Nicholas, and Dr. Turner is the key element in leading Miranda safely into the 1950s ideal of Womanhood.
Published as WWII was nearing its end, Anya Seton's 1944 novel, Dragonwyck, becomes a sharp metaphor for shifting political movements, neatly tucked into competing ideologies, wrapped in a love story. Yet it moves into second gear as a cautionary tale to the modern post-war woman: She who was first exhorted out of her WWII kitchen and and into the factory to promote the war effort; now fully empowered with jobs and childcare, must now sacrifice herself by returning home, dusting off those God-fearing principles, and embracing the post-war Happy Housewife role. A product of its time, Dragonwyck punishes our heroine for wanting a three-dimensional life, as she witnesses the consequences of her naive choices through a prism of drug addiction, murder, and death. A wiser Miranda rejoins her long-suffering mother and family, leaving behind the memories of Johanna, Katrine, Magda, a spectral ghost, and her physically disabled maid, Peggy. That every woman in Dragonwyck is affected by some sort of affliction drives home the point that 'home' is truly the safest - and healthiest - place for a woman.
Vincent Price's performance as the imperious Nicholas shines in many scenes, but nowhere better than when Miranda confronts him in his tower apartment, asking why he spends so much time there, isolated from everyone. "I live," he replies, with haughty distain. Hoping to shock her, he casually tosses out that he's a drug addict, but now it's his turn to underestimate her rural heritage. Gene Tierney glows as a young woman who finally comes of age, as this key scene plays out. Price's portrayal of a man, stubbornly refusing to ask for help from her or a higher power, mirrors her father's stubborn refusal to accept that there is any other way to life except by biblical law. That Miranda fails to see the connection between them condemns her to fall back on the comfort zone of traditional values of hearth and home, as set down by society.
So it never fails that when I see an old friend, they invariably surprise me - not because I haven't seen them in a long time, but because I am experiencing them through new eyes. The last time I viewed Dragonwyck, it was several decades earlier, when I was a member of that legion of Happy Housewives, settling for something and still wishing for more.
by Paulette Reynolds
October 6, 2014
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Screenplay: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Starring Gene Tierney, Vincent Price, Glenn Langan, Anne Revere, Walter Huston, Spring Byington, Harry Morgan, and Jessica Tandy
Sometimes viewing a particular movie is like visiting an old friend that we haven't seen in a long time, where a different aspect of the film's personality suddenly reveals itself. I recently caught 20th Century-Fox's Dragonwyck on TCM. Since it's one of my favorite films of the 1940s period, it brought back memories of past viewings - After all, it's a film that has a lot going for it: a plot involving murder, drug addiction, forbidden longings, class and religious warfare, and of course, the unusual pairing of Gene Tierney and Vincent Price as a romantic couple.
But the movie's central theme appeared to have shifted for me, from one of a young woman seeking personal happiness in dangerous places, to a woman testing the limits of societal expectations in the mid-1800s. This sad, melodramatic story centers on Miranda, a young farmer's daughter - naive and ambitious, hungering for a different life beyond the cornfields. Miranda's father, Ephraim, the family's rigid patriarch, uses religion to subdue his family, contentedly quoting scripture as a way of keeping an emotional distance from the womenfolk and children. She sees her mother, Abigail, stoically resigned to her life, with only her face hinting at another internal monologue, and is more determined than ever not to be constrained in this one-dimensional world of her parents creation.
As if in answer to her prayers, her wealthy cousin, Nicholas offers her an opportunity to act as governess to his daughter, Katrine, on the Van Ryn estate. His amusement at Ephraim's ultra-conservative values allows Miranda her first view of another approach to life, capturing her heart at his first contemptuous grin. No sooner than Miranda can say "Golly!" at seeing Dragonwyck than circumstances begin to drive home the old adage, "Be careful what you wish for."
Miranda's first night strikes a tone of creepy, as she meets Nicholas's wife, a foodaholic, and Katrine, a mournful child just this side of clinically depressed. It's a long way from a the farm, all right. Yet Magda, the housekeeper (played with eerie madness by Spring Byington), nails the young governess's past and future as she observes, "You like being waited on - I could see tonight it was your first time. You like peaches out of season. You like the feel of silk sheets against your young body... And one day you'll wish with all your heart you'd never come to Dragonwyck!" As time passes, Miranda realizes that her infatuation with the opulent lifestyle includes enjoying the attentions from the master of the mansion.
Miranda witnesses another worldview during a conflict between the 'Patroon' Van Ryn and tenant farmer Klaas Bleeker, (the best performance of veteran character actor Harry Morgan's career), who refuses to acknowledge the dying political Manor system - or Nicholas as his Patroon. During a meeting with the tenants, Nicholas imperiously snarls, "Just what is it he wants you to want so passionately? It has an assortment of highly romantic names - the rights of man, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and such - and all those will be yours with the titles to a few acres of soil. Believe me, my welfare does not depend upon you. Rather, you depend upon it. But my rents and tributes and my responsibilities are hereditary - the symbols of a way of life to which I have been born, and in which I shall continue to live.' Much like her father's passionate beliefs, Miranda shrugs off Nichola's narrow vision, easily separating the message from the man.
The third perspective that Miranda is introduced to is held by Dr. Jeff Turner (Glenn Langan), a sensitive physician, whose democratic principles strike a happy balance between the opposing philosophies of her conservative father and imperious cousin. While the mysterious death of Johanna Van Ryn and a family closet chock-full of skeletons might appear to be the main focus of Dragonwyck, the over-riding belief systems of Ephraim, Nicholas, and Dr. Turner is the key element in leading Miranda safely into the 1950s ideal of Womanhood.
Published as WWII was nearing its end, Anya Seton's 1944 novel, Dragonwyck, becomes a sharp metaphor for shifting political movements, neatly tucked into competing ideologies, wrapped in a love story. Yet it moves into second gear as a cautionary tale to the modern post-war woman: She who was first exhorted out of her WWII kitchen and and into the factory to promote the war effort; now fully empowered with jobs and childcare, must now sacrifice herself by returning home, dusting off those God-fearing principles, and embracing the post-war Happy Housewife role. A product of its time, Dragonwyck punishes our heroine for wanting a three-dimensional life, as she witnesses the consequences of her naive choices through a prism of drug addiction, murder, and death. A wiser Miranda rejoins her long-suffering mother and family, leaving behind the memories of Johanna, Katrine, Magda, a spectral ghost, and her physically disabled maid, Peggy. That every woman in Dragonwyck is affected by some sort of affliction drives home the point that 'home' is truly the safest - and healthiest - place for a woman.
Vincent Price's performance as the imperious Nicholas shines in many scenes, but nowhere better than when Miranda confronts him in his tower apartment, asking why he spends so much time there, isolated from everyone. "I live," he replies, with haughty distain. Hoping to shock her, he casually tosses out that he's a drug addict, but now it's his turn to underestimate her rural heritage. Gene Tierney glows as a young woman who finally comes of age, as this key scene plays out. Price's portrayal of a man, stubbornly refusing to ask for help from her or a higher power, mirrors her father's stubborn refusal to accept that there is any other way to life except by biblical law. That Miranda fails to see the connection between them condemns her to fall back on the comfort zone of traditional values of hearth and home, as set down by society.
So it never fails that when I see an old friend, they invariably surprise me - not because I haven't seen them in a long time, but because I am experiencing them through new eyes. The last time I viewed Dragonwyck, it was several decades earlier, when I was a member of that legion of Happy Housewives, settling for something and still wishing for more.
COPYRIGHT 2012/2016. Paulette Reynolds. All CineMata Movie Madness blog articles, reviews, faux interviews, commentary, and the Cine Mata character are under the sole ownership of Paulette Reynolds. All intellectual and creative rights reserved.
