Search
What's Hot
Day-by-Day Fall Schedule
Idol Winner Speaks!
Jim Parsons Comes Out
Game of Thrones Star's Sex Stare

The Dark At The Top Of The Stairs

1960, Movie, NR, 123 mins

The Dark At The Top Of The Stairs: Review

starstarstarstar
The play won the Pulitzer Prize but never really captured a large audience. The Ravetch-Frank screen adaptation did as well as it could with the stage-bound material. Preston is again a larger-than-life character as he was in the THE MUSIC MAN. His performance jars the screen because everyone else properly underplays for the medium of film under director Mann's hand. It's the saga of an Oklahoma family with several problems. Father Preston temporarily leaves mother McGuire for mistress Angela Lansbury; Shirley Knight is in love with a Jewish boy, Lee Kinsolving, who eventually commits suicide because he can't take the anti-Semitism he encounters; McGuire's sister Arden is married to a weak wimp Overton, and the son, Eyer, is afraid of the dark at the top of the stairs. Each story is played out and intertwined with the others, and when it's all over not that much has happened. It must have been about Inge's life while he was growing up in the 1920s. Shirley Knight got an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her small but effective role. She lost out that year to Shirley Jones in ELMER GANTRY. This was difficult subject matter for a 1960s audience to sit through. It never achieved the kind of success the studio had anticipated. leave a comment
Are You Watching?
The Dark At The Top Of The Stairs
Loading ...
Advertisement

Our Partners

Advertisement

Related Websites

You might be also interested in the following websites:

Most Popular TV Shows

  1. American Idol
  2. NCIS
  3. Big Bang Theory
  4. Voice
  5. Person of Interest
more popular tv shows

Most Popular Celebrities

  1. Jessica Simpson
  2. Khloe Kardashian
  3. Kate Middleton
  4. Maria Menounos
  5. Kim Kardashian
more popular celebrities

Most Popular Movies

  1. Avengers
  2. Battleship
  3. The Dictator
  4. Dark Shadows
  5. What To Expect When You're Expecting
more popular movies

Top Videos

  1. Revenge
  2. The Big Bang Theory
  3. Modern Family
  4. Days of our Lives
  5. Young and the Restless
more top videos