The Dark at the Top of the Stairs **** (1960, Robert Preston, Dorothy McGuire, Eve Arden, Angela Lansbury, Shirley Knight) – Classic Movie Review 9667

William Inge’s renowned Pulitzer prize-winning play The Dark at the Top of the Stairs transfers to the screen in Delbert Mann’s good looking but vaguely unsatisfactory, rather stagey 1960 film production, lovingly adapted by screen-writing and marriage partners Harriet Frank Jr and Irving Ravetch.

However, the acting is consistently exceptionally strong, with Dorothy McGuire (frigid wife Cora Flood), Eve Arden (Lottie Lacey) and Shirley Knight (teenage daughter Reenie Flood) to the fore as they cope with the ups and downs of life in Oklahoma in the 1920s.

The touching drama centres on travelling salesman Rubin Flood (Robert Preston)’s work and family problems (he loses his job and struggles to make ends meet) and his growing awareness of the tensions (sexual and anti-Semitic) around him, as well as the adolescent problems of his daughter Reenie and son, Sonny (Robert Eyer).

The Dark at the Top of the Stairs is affecting enough, but a sharper attitude all round would have helped – though maybe that is just because both the material and the film have slightly faded over the years.

Angela Lansbury enjoys herself as the beauty parlor proprietor, Mavis Pruitt, whom Cora falsely accuses of having an affair with her husband. Shirley Knight earned the first of two Oscar nominations, followed by Sweet Bird of Youth.

Also in the cast are Frank Overton, Lee Kinsolving, Robert Eyer, Penny Parker, Ken Lynch, Paul Birch, Mary Patton, Addison Richards, Charles Seel, Helen Wallace, Ben Erway, Emerson Treacy, and Robin Warga.

RIP Harriet Frank Jr., Oscar-nominated screenwriter on Hud, Hombre (1967), The Cowboys (1972), Conrack (1974) and Norma Rae, who died at 96 in 29 January 2020.

Shirley Knight (July 5, 1936 – April 22, 2020).

RIP Shirley Knight, who earned two Oscar nominations in her 20s (for The Dark at the Top of the Stairs in 1961 and Sweet Bird of Youth in 1963), won a Tony Award in 1975, won a Golden Globe in 1996, and won three Emmy Awards. She died on 22 April 2020, aged 83.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9667

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