It seems too good for Merle Oberon in Dark Waters. Being one of four survivors from a ship that left Japanese occupied Dutch East Indies in a perilous voyage that took her parents, she's alone in the world. But her doctor, Alan Napier, in New Orleans where she was taken finds she has relatives in New York. But miracle of miracles they are in residence in an old family plantation in the bayou country not far from the Big Easy. She makes arrangements to go there and sends a telegram.
Merle's odyssey then takes a strange turn when no one is there to meet her at the station. She eventually gets to the plantation where uncle John Qualen and aunt Fay Bainter are pleasant enough as is another bachelor uncle, Thomas Mitchell. There's an overseer in Elisha Cook, Jr. who fancies himself a lady's man, but he hasn't got a prayer when Merle sets her sights on local doctor Franchot Tone. But a lot starts to make her more and more uncomfortable in these family surroundings.
This independent film released by United Artists veers right down the middle between Gothic horror and noir. The trappings are pretty cheap, the players are fine in their roles. As it turns out nearly all of them are cast against type, especially Mitchell. He's in a role that you'd expect Sydney Greenstreet to be doing, but Mitchell does fine with it in fact being cast against type probably works for him in terms of realism.
Franchot Tone was free from MGM and now doing roles he'd never be cast in with that Tiffany studio. He's out of dinner jacket and light comedy and gets a chance to show what he could do even in a part that's not the center of the film. Dark Waters is very much a Merle Oberon film.
The film really could have been a classic with a director like Alfred Hitchcock instead of Andre DeToth. It's not bad though, an interesting tale where a lot of the familiar players aren't doing their usual stuff.
Merle's odyssey then takes a strange turn when no one is there to meet her at the station. She eventually gets to the plantation where uncle John Qualen and aunt Fay Bainter are pleasant enough as is another bachelor uncle, Thomas Mitchell. There's an overseer in Elisha Cook, Jr. who fancies himself a lady's man, but he hasn't got a prayer when Merle sets her sights on local doctor Franchot Tone. But a lot starts to make her more and more uncomfortable in these family surroundings.
This independent film released by United Artists veers right down the middle between Gothic horror and noir. The trappings are pretty cheap, the players are fine in their roles. As it turns out nearly all of them are cast against type, especially Mitchell. He's in a role that you'd expect Sydney Greenstreet to be doing, but Mitchell does fine with it in fact being cast against type probably works for him in terms of realism.
Franchot Tone was free from MGM and now doing roles he'd never be cast in with that Tiffany studio. He's out of dinner jacket and light comedy and gets a chance to show what he could do even in a part that's not the center of the film. Dark Waters is very much a Merle Oberon film.
The film really could have been a classic with a director like Alfred Hitchcock instead of Andre DeToth. It's not bad though, an interesting tale where a lot of the familiar players aren't doing their usual stuff.