Dragonwyck (1946) on Netflix
NR19461h 43mDramaMysteryRomance
In 1844, Connecticut farm girl Miranda Wells is invited by her distant cousin Nicholas Van Ryn to Dragonwyck, his Hudson Valley manor. She becomes a companion to his young daughter Katrine.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb6.9/106,302 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes67%
Trailer
Plot summary
Miranda Wells dreams of a life beyond her family's small Connecticut farm, and when a letter comes from their wealthy cousin Nicholas Van Ryn, a Hudson Valley patroon, she talks her parents Ephraim and Abigail into letting her travel to Dragonwyck, his manor, to keep his eight-year-old daughter Katrine company. There she finds that Nicholas and his wife Johanna keep apart from each other and from the child, while the servants talk of a curse on the Van Ryn bloodline, heard in a harpsichord that only family members hear. Nicholas evicts a tenant farmer, Klaas Bleecker, who will not take part in the rent-paying ceremony. At the farmers' gathering Miranda meets Dr. Jeff Turner, who speaks for the tenants' rights. She is drawn to Nicholas as Johanna grows ill.
Cast
Show all 20 cast
- Shelby Baconas Dancer (uncredited)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Dragonwyck (1946)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Ernst Lubitsch was set to direct but collapsed from a heart attack while filming A Royal Scandal, then asked Joseph L. Mankiewicz to write and direct Dragonwyck, Mankiewicz's feature debut as a director.
- Gregory Peck, Gene Tierney and John Hodiak were cast in the leads in spring 1944, but Peck left to star in Duel in the Sun and was replaced by Vincent Price, while Glenn Langan took over from Hodiak.
- Joseph L. Mankiewicz's appraisal of Anya Seton's novel said it revealed "less to this than meets the eye," with an unsatisfying love story and an overwhelming cost, but Twentieth Century-Fox bought the rights anyway.
- Jessica Tandy won the role of Miranda's invalid Irish maid after Joseph L. Mankiewicz saw her perform in Tennessee Williams's one-act play Portrait of a Madonna, directed by her husband Hume Cronyn.
- Ernst Lubitsch sent Joseph L. Mankiewicz an angry memo over a bedroom scene, the character would have shut the door, and by the end of filming the two were no longer on speaking terms; Lubitsch had his producer's credit removed, though they later reconciled.
- The ending, originally the destruction of the Dragonwyck estate, was rewritten during production after the Production Code Association suggested it was too similar to previous gothic romantic films.
