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Dragonwyck (1946)
big-time continuity problem
I caught this on TCM last night and am bewildered that no previous comments mentioned some obvious weirdness about this movie. It's as if at the moment the first wife dies, a new writer took over who hadn't read (or liked) the first half of the movie.
For one thing, the very next scene begins with Nicholas in Miranda's bedroom, she's in bed, and they're talking as if this were an every day occurrence. This is very odd for mid-19th century, and even odder considering his wife had died just hours before. I know he's on the make for Miranda, but her character is not at all likely to allow this without being very nervous about it.
And what happened to the servant Magda and the daughter Katrine? These two creepy characters were among the more interesting members of the household in the first half of the movie, yet they're never seen again after the wife dies. "Writer #2" must have decided that a slightly sassy, partially crippled female servant with a thick Irish brogue would work better than a slightly nutty and more elderly Magda - and just substituted one for the other when he felt like it! A single, more well-developed character would have worked much better.
And although a lot of time is spent showing the growing relationship between Miranda and Katrine in the first half of the movie, i can barely remember Katrine even being mentioned after the wife dies. It's especially weird at the end, both parents are now dead, Miranda has now been Katrine's stepmother for some time (and we can assume the only person with whom Katrine is close), yet at the end Miranda leaves without so much as mentioning Katrine as she rides off alone back to the farm. I guess Katrine has to stay alone in the creepy Dragonwyck so that the ghost of her great-grandmother will have a family member to torture with those doom-predicting dirges she plays! They should make a sequel about Katrine set 30 years later, she would probably make daddy's problems pale by comparison.
Overall i liked this movie, good setting and acting, but with a little tightening of the script, it could have been great instead of just slightly better than average.
Hunt the Man Down (1950)
very well done little movie
It amazes me when people dismiss a movie because of its short length. I much more appreciate a compact, well written and directed movie than some drivel that drags on and on and makes me wonder what happened to the editor. I watched this movie with low expectations since i had never heard of the director and most of the actors. Despite the number of central characters, the director did an excellent job of quickly defining them and getting to the point of the movie. Any additional footage would have been superfluous and only bogged down the steady pace of the movie. James Anderson was excellent at avoiding the stereotypical unjustly accused victim, he neither ranted about his predicament nor did he come across as the overly likable guy who just happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, which is what is normally expected of that type of roll. Though it's hard to imagine a public defender putting as much work into the case as this one did, i thought it was a great bit of writing to make his pivotal discovery an accident despite the pd's dogged pursuit of those involved 12 years earlier. I highly recommend this movie to those who appreciate tightly written and economically directed movies.