I would swear I wrote about this film a few months ago, but apparently I meant to and never did. I really liked it so I don't know why I would have forgotten but that is now rectified.
Miranda, a farm girl who dreams of romance and luxury finds herself invited to visit her rich distant cousin to be a companion to his little girl and she jumps t the chance. Once there she discovered his wife and daughter have very little to do with him. Vincent Price is the rich cousin and if you are expecting this to be a gothic horror treat, it just isn't. Sure is has one gothic horror element, a harpsichord playing when tragedy is about to strike and only the cousin's direct bloodline can hear it but that goes pretty much nowhere.
Where the film does go is into a murder mystery and family drama as Price's wife gets a cold but suddenly dies of it. The doctor he has come over, which price assumes is dumb turns out not to be. In no time The cousins are getting married after he confesses that his unhappy marriage was caused by the former wife not bearing him a son and she is pregnant shortly after the nuptials are over. Sadly, the infant dies shortly after being baptized of a heart condition.
Price becomes a lot less likeable after that, becoming a drug addict, abusive and it is revealed that, even worse, he is an atheist! Things degrade and Miranda becomes suspicious of the previous wife's death and enlists the doctor's aid to find out. They also seem to be falling for each other.
This is not a best film of all time sort of thing but it is pretty great, mostly because Vincent price is so amazing in the role. Gene Tierny deserves a better role and the doctor as well but who can outshine Price?
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