Vincent Price as Nicholas Van Ryn

Dragonwyck (1946) /// dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Vincent Price as Nicholas Van Ryn in Dragonwyck // 1946 // slouchy

The Price May Be Right - Number 16

Welcome to “The Price May Be Right!” I’m counting down My Top 31 Favorite Vincent Price Performances & Appearances! The countdown will cover movies, TV productions, and many more forms of media. We’ve officially reached the halfway point for this countdown! Today we focus on Number 16: Nicholas Van Ryn, from Dragonwyck.

Honestly, it’s very fitting this performance lands smack-dab in the middle of this countdown. In many ways, this film could almost be perceived as a crossroads in Vincent Price’s career. I say “almost” because…well…chronologically speaking, it really wasn’t. But the SPIRIT of the film, to put in the most pretentious terms imaginable, feels like a crossroads between Vincent’s earliest endeavors on the screen, and the kind of work he’d be most known for by the time his career hit its greatest stride. “Dragonwyck” came out in 1946. At this time in Vincent’s career, the actor was only starting to make his name well-known as a portrayer of dignified and complex villains, and while he’d done a couple of spook shows, it would be some time before he became well known for his work in Gothic horror movies. In the 30s and 40s, Price was best known as a character actor in period pieces, and that is essentially the reason he was picked for the role of the main antagonist in the film. The plot of “Dragonwyck” focuses on a young lady, Miranda Wells: a country-grown, God-fearing girl wo has many optimistic ideals and far-flung dreams for her future. Her dreams seem to find a possibility for reality when she meets a wealthy New England landowner by the name of Nicholas Van Ryn. Nicholas is an elegant, eloquent gentleman, and Miranda is soon smitten; he, too, ends up falling in love with her…even though he’s already married. Hiring Miranda as a servant at his estate, Nicholas brings her to his family manor house, known as Dragonwyck. From that point on, various strange and unfortunate events befall the pair, as their relationship goes from a dream to a total nightmare. While not by any means a horror film, this movie has many elements that certainly feel reminiscent of the kinds of movies Vincent would be most well known for later on. The story involves murder, ancient curses, supposed ghostly occurrences, and all takes place in an old mansion on a lonely hilltop. The way the film is lit and shot often evokes feelings of unease, as well; it may not BE a Gothic chiller, but it often FEELS like one. I guess the best way to describe it is that it’s neither a horror thriller, nor a period drama, but something in-between: a “period thriller,” if you will. The character Vincent plays is similarly fashioned: Nicholas is both the love interest and the main antagonist, and as such, he’s a character we are always finding ourselves second-guessing. He flip-flops constantly from being someone we care about and even feel sorry for, to someone we utterly despise and fear. He and Miranda’s twin arcs mirror each other, as both have any aspirations and ideals they long to hold onto, and both are forced to realize that, as the song goes, “there are dreams that cannot be, and storms we cannot weather.” What separates the pair is ultimately how they react to these things. Price plays the character absolutely beautifully, making his pain just as palpable as his perversions, and thus creates one of the most sympathetic yet still shadowy villains he ever portrayed in his entire career. Tomorrow, the countdown continues, as we move into the Top 15!

Vincent Price as Nicholas Van Ryn in Dragonwyck

“I will not look to the ground and move on the ground with the rest, not so long as there are those mountaintops and clouds...”

Vincent Price as Nicholas Van Ryn in Dragonwyck 1946 🌓

Hello dearest! Do you have more books/lits to recommend? Related to your past book recommendations. Thank you dearest and do rest well. ♥

hello hello!! i've been reading a lot these past few weeks actually, so this is good timing.

(here are my past book recommends if anyone is curious)

demons by fyodor dostoevsky (he's back, unsurprisingly. i'm sure anyone who has followed me for two seconds is used to seeing this fella's name. this was such a distinct experience compared to his other works... it definitely felt like a tragedy. it's also wickedly funny. it's kinda crazy to me that a book from almost two centuries ago can still make me laugh).

dragonwyck by anya seton (a dizzying ride that really picks up halfway, although i found the first half enjoyable nonetheless. nicholas van ryn was such an interesting character... i never knew what to expect from him. i loved the gothic elements as well).

the stranger by albert camus (this was my first exposure to camus' writing style, so i was a bit put off by it at first, but it quickly grew on me. i especially enjoyed the final conversation between the protagonist and the chaplain at the end).

the metamorphosis by franz kafka (i read this bad boy in school like i'm sure most of us did. i decided to go ahead and reread it as an adult to see what my perspective on it now is. i'm glad i did — i definitely appreciate it more than when i was like. 15).

discipline and punish by michel foucault (the french are taking over this list. i find history and criminology fascinating so a combination of the two is a match made in heaven to me. i guess this is to be expected of a criminal psychology major. i will say that this is the most difficult book i've ever read, my brain felt like it was making the windows shutdown noise frequently because of how dense the subject matter is. probably a niche read. very fascinating if you're into the subjects i mentioned though).

Gene Tierney and Vincent Price in Dragonwyck (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1946)

Cast: Gene Tierney, Vincent Price, Walter Huston, Glenn Langan, Anne Revere, Spring Byington, Connie Marshall, Harry Morgan, Jessica Tandy. Screenplay: Joseph L. Mankiewicz, based on a novel by Anya Seton. Cinematography: Arthur C. Miller. Art direction: J. Russell Spencer, Lyle R. Wheeler. Film editing: Dorothy Spencer. Music: Alfred Newman. 

Dragonwyck both courts and suffers from comparison to those other paradigmatic gloomy old house movies of the 1940s, Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1941) and Robert Stevenson's Jane Eyre (1943). As the imperious master of the titular gloomy old house, Vincent Price can hardly compete with Laurence Olivier in the former or Orson Welles in the latter. Price had an aura of camp, present not only today after his many horror movies, but apparent even then, after playing Shelby Carpenter in Laura (Otto Preminger, 1944). Gene Tierney, on the other hand, holds up well in a comparison with Joan Fontaine, the heroine of both of the other two movies. There's also some distinguished supporting work from first-rate actors like Walter Huston, Anne Revere, and Jessica Tandy, and solid contributions by familiar character actors Spring Byington and Harry Morgan. So Dragonwyck isn't a total loss. Where it falls apart is in adapting Any Seton's hefty novel, which concentrates as much on history as on gothic romance. The historical element in both novel and film centers on the overthrow of the semi-feudal patroon system that was established in the Hudson River Valley by the Dutch in the 17th century and persisted through the mid-1840s. In adapting the novel, even the gifted screenwriter Joseph L. Mankiewicz can't do much to stuff the history into the confines of his movie, which was also his debut as a director. But I got the feeling that he was stymied by the demands of the characters as well: We get only an outline of the backstory of his heroine, Miranda Wells (Tierney), in an opening scene with her stern, puritanical father (Huston) and her more understanding mother (Revere), before she is carried off to Dragonwyck to serve as governess to Katrine Van Ryn (Connie Marshall) and companion to the invalid Mrs. Van Ryn (Vivienne Osborne). The mystery of how and why Miranda's distant cousin-by-marriage, Nicholas Van Ryn (Price), decided to hire Miranda is never explained. The faithful Van Ryn housekeeper (Byington) shows her the house and tells her its creepy history, and then warns her, "One day you'll wish with all your heart you'd never come to Dragonwyck." But there's also a handsome young doctor (the forgettable Glenn Langan) to suggest alternative possibilities. The spook factor consists of a portrait of an ill-fated ancestor and her harpsichord, whose ghost can be heard singing and playing at ominous moments, such as the death of Mrs. Van Ryn. Mankiewicz has some trouble putting all of these pieces into play: For example, little Katrine disappears from the story entirely in mid-film, even after Miranda nominally becomes Katrine's stepmother. The best way to watch a movie like Dragonwyck is to disengage all expectations of logical character development and plot structure and just go with the mood supplied by the sets and Arthur C. Miller's cinematography.  

In the book Dragonwyck there’s actually a bit where Nicholas Van Ryn gets caught up in the riots over the Macready/Forrest Macbeth feud (a snob, he’s Team Macready.) It’s a shame this wasn’t in the movie, if only because I would have loved to see Vincent Price play that!

I don’t know if any discussion will come from this, but I wanted to put my thoughts out there and see others opinions too. Spoilers ahead. 

I recently watched Leave Her to Heaven (1945) on the Criterion Channel and while I understand that it is a film noir, a colorful one at that, I couldn't help but to feel like I was watching a horror film at times. I mean, I felt more disturbed watching it than the several classic to mid-seventies horror films I've been watching as of late. Ellen letting Danny drown seemed more gruesome than watching a man get his heart cut out of him. Her piercing eyes after she took off her sunglasses seemed sharper than a dagger. Her purposeful miscarriage/stillbirth was even more horrifying. I couldn't help but to be a bit thrown off when the film ended as happily as it could be.

I couldn't help but to notice how similar she was to Nicholas Van Ryn in Dragonwyck (1946), played by her co-star Vincent Price (who was in both of these films with her.) Ellen called Danny a "cripple." Nicholas declared that "deformed bodies depress me." Ellen did everything in her power, including killing, to keep Richard to herself. Nicholas did everything in his power, including killing, to have a son. Both had the charisma and charm to fool their love interests before their dark sides were revealed by their obsessions. Both, in the end, died thinking they had won.

(Though that can be argued with Nicholas, as he died without a son to be his heir. But he died with the men taking their hats off in respect to him, which he had wanted earlier in the film, to their "patroon" in his own words. So he did get that in the end.)

These thoughts have been on my mind since I watched LHTH and I just needed to get them out. Thank you to whoever reads this and wants to discuss it. 

i plan to watch the video tonight but my current theories on the confederate vampire phenomenon are that it has to do with Lost Cause-style romanticization of a genteel past and a lost way of life (that never existed), outsized southern gothic influence on modern american gothic fiction, and how no one wants their sexy gothic love interest to be, like, a boston brahmin or a patroon (blows a kiss to nicholas van ryn)

Vincent Price - Dragonwyck (1946)

Dragonwyck (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1946)

Sorprende hasta qué punto pertenece a Mankiewicz su primera película, producida por Lubitsch (no ha llegado a establecerse si con la intención, frustrada por su mala salud, de dirigirla, o si para darle una oportunidad al ya veterano guionista y productor). Dragonwyck (El castillo de Dragonwyck, 1946) supone el encuentro de Mankiewicz con un tipo de mujer —encarnado aquí por la seductora Gene Tierney, más vulnerable que nunca— al que se mantendrá fiel durante buena parte de su carrera futura. Esta mujer será víctima, además, de la primera «maquinación» puesta en escena por Mankiewicz —de ahí su fascinada complicidad, casi irreprimible, con los intrigantes—, aunque tal vez sea la más simple, lejos aún de posteriores «complots» y, sobre todo, de los duelos entre maquinadores (Fox contra McFly, Paris Pitman Jr. y Woodward Lopeman, Andrew Wyke y Milo Tindle) que constituyen la trama de sus películas más recientes, The Honey Pot (Mujeres en Venecia, 1967), There was a crooked man… (El día de los tramposos, 1970) y Sleuth (La huella, 1972). Surge por vez primera, ominoso, el peso del pasado enquistado, aunque todavía —pronto llegará la ocasión- no se nos arrastre o succione hacia él mediante flash-backs. Aparece también, con el rostro taciturno de Vincent Price, el primer personaje de Mankiewicz arrancado de la realidad y sumido en la locura por la sed de dominio, poder o dinero. Tampoco hay que olvidar la embriagadora jungla floral que, con intención pacientemente criminal, instala Nicholas van Ryn en el dormitorio de su esposa, que anuncia ya el claustrofóbico jardín de Suddenly, Last Summer (De repente, el último verano, 1960). Pero no se trata de una coincidencia de rasgos y detalles dispersos: se nota ya la presencia invisible, tras la cámara, de esa mirada distante pero curiosa, burlona pero no despectiva, inteligente pero sólo en apariencia cínica, que trata de penetrar, sin disiparla, a través de la bruma venenosa del delirio y la fantasía desquiciada y que, para que le acompañemos en su peligrosa incursión, nos ofrece, en matizada penumbra, una imagen nítida de las más turbias relaciones, y se sirve con astucia del poder hipnótico de la narración reflexiva —la que comenta simultáneamente lo que cuenta— y de una cámara discreta que traza laberintos.

Publicado en el nº 14 de Casablanca (febrero de 1982)

Dragonwyck  ( 1946 ) starring, among many well knowns, Vincent Price and  the incredibly beautiful Gene Tierney. I love this quote from Vincent Price as Nicholas Van Ryn: "But I will not live by ordinary standards. I will not run with the pack. I will not be chained into a routine of living which is the same for others. I will not look to the ground and move on the ground with the rest: so long as there are those mountaintops, and clouds, and limitless space."

Vincent Price as Nicholas Van Ryn in a promo for Dragonwyck // 1946 // colour edit

Do you hear it?

VINCENT PRICE as NICHOLAS VAN RYN in DRAGONWYCK (1946)

Nicholas Van Ryn//Trauma bond