Dragonwyck

Dragonwyck is set in 1844, when Miranda Wells, a young woman from a modest Connecticut farming family, is invited by a distant relative to live at his estate on the Hudson River and serve as governess to his daughter. Nicholas Van Ryn is a wealthy landowner whose household is troubled: he has little to do with his child, his tenants are restless, and servants speak of curses and ghosts. As Miranda settles into the mansion, she becomes entangled in the lives of its master and his ailing wife, and the arrangement turns far darker than she expected.

The film was directed and written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, the first of the fourteen features he directed in chronological order and the one that preceded The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Gene Tierney plays Miranda, with Vincent Price as Nicholas Van Ryn, Walter Huston and Anne Revere as her parents, Glenn Langan as Dr. Jeff Turner and Spring Byington as Magda. Darryl F. Zanuck and Ernst Lubitsch produced for 20th Century Fox, and the credited cast runs to 57 names.

Made for about 2 million dollars, Dragonwyck took roughly 6 million worldwide, a solid return for a period drama of its scale. On IMDb it holds 6.9/10 from around 6,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.6/10 from 126 votes, indicating a modest but enduring audience for the gothic material.