| The Dark at the Top of the Stairs | |
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Movie poster |
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| Directed by | Delbert Mann |
| Produced by | Michael Garrison |
| Written by | Harriet Frank, Jr. Irving Ravetch William Inge (play) |
| Starring | Robert Preston Dorothy McGuire |
| Release date(s) | September 22, 1960 |
| Running time | 124 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Dark at the Top of the Stairs is a 1957 play by William Inge about family conflicts during the early 1920s in a small Oklahoma town. It won the Tony Award for Best Play and was made into a film in 1960.
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The drama centers on Rubin Flood, who loses his salesman job. While searching for a new job, he must deal with his wife, Cora, who shuns intimacy and mistakes his joblessness for stinginess, his shy daughter who prepares for her first dance and his pre-teen son who runs to his mother instead of dealing with bullies. He tries to find comfort with a friend, Mavis Pruitt, thus setting off rumors of an untoward relationship. In addition to the themes of modernization (i.e., not enough demand for horse harness, and the impending arrival of the oil industry)
Directed by Elia Kazan, the play opened December 5, 1957, at New York's Music Box Theatre and ran for a total of 468 performances, closing on January 17, 1959. The drama was reworked by Inge from his earlier play, Farther Off from Heaven, first staged in 1947 at Margo Jones' Theatre '47 in Dallas, Texas.
Opening night cast:
It was nominated for five Tony Awards: Best Play, Best Featured Actor (Pat Hingle), Best Featured Actress (Eileen Heckart), Best Scenic Design (Ben Edwards), Best Director (Elia Kazan) and won Best Play. Timmy Everett won a Theatre World Award.
Harriet Frank, Jr. and Irving Ravetch adapted Inge's play into a 1960 film directed by Delbert Mann.
Variety gave the film a favorable review, noting that it was "well cast and persuasively acted".[3] Shirley Knight earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role as "Reenie Flood".
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