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DragonwyckFor all the young filmmakers hoping to be the next Hitchcock or Scorsese, it's surprising there aren't more people in the world hoping to emulate the success of writer-producer-director Joseph L Mankiewicz. A man who won four Oscars in just two short years (and was nominated for a further six), Mankiewicz's list of important films features such genuine classics as All About Eve, The Ghost And Mrs Muir and Julius Caesar.
'Mank' also had the distinction of directing 12 actors to Academy Award nominations, the far-from-dirty dozen including Marlon Brando, Katharine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor. And while he might have made the calamitous Cleopatra, the fact he closed out his career directing Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier in the sublime Sleuth must have provided sufficient consolation.
Mankiewicz's success is even more incredible when you remember that he only directed 22 films. Of these, few are as much fun as Dragonwyck, a superb haunted house movie featuring great work from Gene Tierney and Vincent Price.
As young Miranda Wells, Tierney finds herself dispatched to the Van Ryn family's Dragonwyck estate. What intially sounds like an exciting assignation soon turns scary as Miranda discovers that the Van Ryns are no strangers to insanity. And in the kingdom of the mad, few are quite as hatstand as Nicholas Van Ryn (Price), the young master of the house who is clearly up to no good in the darkest reaches of Dragonwyck.
Right up there with Rebecca and Uncle Silas in the spooky mansion stakes, Dragonwyck is almost impossibly entertaining. In one of his earliest stabs at horror cinema, Vincent Price couldn't look more comfortable if he was wearing silk pyjamas. The supporting cast also seem at ease in the unsettling environment - look out for nice turns from a thirtysomething Jessica Tandy and future 'M*A*S*H' and 'Dragnet' star Harry Morgan. And while there are few leading actresses to touch Gene Tierney, John Huston's dad Walter is quite excellent as Miranda's old man.
As for Manikewicz, he acquits himself amazingly well for someone heading up their second feature film. He's so good, in fact, that you almost wish he hadn't gone off to make movies of great power and import. Then again, if Manikewicz had contented himself with genre movies, we'd have been denied All About Eve and a world without that film would be a far, far poorer place.
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