Trivia buffs may find it interesting or even ironic that this film is set in 1844 and stars Vincent Price who, though a fine all-round actor achieved perhaps his greatest fame in a series of film adaptations of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe made in the 1960s, stories that Poe was writing around the time that Dragonwyck takes place. By the mid forties Mank had written and/or produced dozens of films but had only only one obscure title under his directorial belt but following the death of Ernst Lubitsch who was contracted to direct Dragonwyck Mank stepped in and never looked back. Arguably more at ease with contemporary stories - A Letter To Three Wives, All About Eve, The Barefoot Contessa etc - he tried 'period' once more - if we don't count Julius Caesar and Cleopatra - and again with Gene Tierney in The Ghost and Mrs Muir and pulled it off both times. Tierney and Price had been engaged to be married in Laura and this time they actually make it to the altar which is not the same as saying it ends happily. Gothic is, by definition, formulaic and most of the elements are present and correct, rugged setting, large, mysterious house, wide-eyed ingenue, ambiguous leading man by turns charming and sinister. For good measure we also touch on social history in the shape of the 'patroons' of whom Price is a representative. A strong supporting cast does no harm at all; Ann Revere trots out her stoic mother, Walter Huston weighs in with a bible-reading farmer, Harry Morgan attempts to incite rebellion against the patroon system - which was abolished four years later anyway - and Spring Byington and Jessica Tandy (literally only months away from creating the role of Blanche DuBois on Broadway) complete an excellent cast. For Mank completists this is an essential movie.
Review of Dragonwyck
