Dragonwyck (1946)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio Trailer-Anna Karenina, Pickup On South Street, Tess, Wages Of Fear
Rating
Year Of Production	1946
Running Time	98:33 (Case: 103)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Gene Tierney Walter Huston Vincent Price Glenn Langan Anne Revere Spring Byington Connie Marshall Harry Morgan Vivienne Osborne Jessica Tandy Trudy Marshall
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$24.95	Music	Alfred Newman

    My wife was very keen for me to review this disc, and being a dutiful husband (stop that snickering!) I obliged her without really knowing much about the film. My wife read the novel ,which was written by Anya Seton, when she was at high school. She also saw this film many years ago on television. I had not seen the film before but I found it quite enjoyable.

    Dragonwyck follows the story of a young girl, Miranda Wells (Gene Tierney), who lives in rural Connecticut in the 1840s (not the 1940s as shown on the case). Her father, Ephraim (Walter Huston) is a strict, god-fearing man with strong moral ideals. When Miranda is invited by a well-to-do distant relative to go and stay at his house in New York State, her father is concerned that it may give her ideas above her station. On first meeting, her father is unimpressed by Nicholas Van Ryn (Vincent Price), finding him wasteful and of dubious moral character. Despite this he agrees for his daughter to go with him and stay at his impressive house on the Hudson River. Van Ryn is a patroon, a landowner who controls large areas of land which are farmed by tenants who pay him a yearly rental and tribute for the use of his land. He is a haughty, creepy and self-important man. The plan is that Miranda will be a companion for Van Ryn's daughter, Katrine, who seems largely to be ignored by her parents. The house, which is called Dragonwyck, is also inhabited by Van Ryn's wife, Johanna (Vivienne Osborne in her last film role), a woman whose only pleasure in life seems to be eating sweets and pastries. There is also a strange and spooky housekeeper, Magda (Spring Byington), who tells Miranda all sorts of stories about the Van Ryns. The tenant farmers start to rise against Van Ryn, demanding ownership of their land. They are organised by a local doctor, Jeff Turner (Glenn Langan), who starts to fall for Miranda. When Van Ryn's wife dies mysteriously, the mystery and intrigue deepens.

    This film is a good quality gothic thriller directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz  in 1946, who would go on to win two directing Oscars. This was only his second feature as a director. The acting is generally strong, with Vincent Price standing out as the villain long before he became the campy horror star. Gene Tierney slightly overplays her role early in the film, but is better as the more mature character later. Trivia buffs should look out for Henry Morgan (Col Potter from M*A*S*H) as a farmer and Jessica Tandy as a young crippled maid, Peggy, many years before winning her Oscar for Driving Miss Daisy in 1990. Technically, there is some great use of shadows which is highlighted by the excellent black & white cinematography. The cinematographer was Arthur Miller, who won three Academy Awards for his work. My only minor criticism of this film is that the ending was quite obvious from pretty early on. Bizarrely, during a fist fight between Van Ryn & Dr Turner, the film is obviously speeded up which makes the scene amusing rather than exciting as I am sure it was intended to be.

    A very enjoyable gothic thriller. Recommended for fans of the genre or films of this era.

Video

    The video quality is very good for a film of this age.

    The feature is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio non 16x9 enhanced which is very close to the original aspect ratio of 1.37:1.

    The picture was quite clear and sharp throughout, with no evidence of low level noise. The shadow detail was very good for a film of this age. There were some minor areas of softness, especially on facial close-ups of Gene Tierney. There was also some light grain present throughout.

    The contrast in the blacks and whites was very good with clear delineation between the various shades of grey.

    From an artefacts perspective, I noticed a jump at 9:43, some mild and irregular edge enhancement such as on Van Ryn's back at 43:02 and 75:05, some very mild aliasing on stairs at 14:40, a dress at 59:15 and one or two occasional jagged edges. There were also a small selection of various flecks, specks and lines but they were not too bad.

    There are no subtitles.
    

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is good.

    This DVD contains an English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack encoded at 448 Kb/s.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand and there was no problem with audio sync.

    The score of this film by nine time Oscar winner Alfred Newman is very good, adding much to the creepy feel of the film. Unfortunately, the music was slightly muffled.

    The surround speakers and subwoofer were not used.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu included a still from the film and music.

Umbrella Trailers

    Trailers for other DVDs released by Umbrella including Anna Karenina, Pickup on South Street, Tess & Wages of Fear.

    This film does not seem to have been released in Region 1, however there is a similar edition available in Region 2. May as well go with the local product which is coded for all regions.

    The video quality is very good for a film of this age.

    The audio quality is good.

    The disc has no extras except some trailers for other films.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall