What happens
Miranda Wells, a young farm woman from Connecticut, arrives in New York in 1844 to live with her distant cousin Nicholas Van Rhein, a wealthy patroon, and his family at Dragonwyck on the Hudson River. Her father is suspicious of the Van Rhein wealth and their feudal authority over the tenant farmers. At the estate, Miranda is drawn into the household's strained life and to Nicholas himself, while tensions grow among the tenants, the local doctor and the Van Rheins. The Lux Radio Theatre presents a dramatization of the Dragonwyck story, featuring Jean Tierney and Vincent Price, as introduced in the broadcast. This is the opening part of the play, and the guide covers only what is heard here.
New York, 1844, along the Hudson River at Dragonwyck, a patroon estate, and in a New York City hotel
Characters: Miranda Wells, Nicholas Van Rhein, Elijah Wells, Johanna Van Rhein, Dr. Turner, Jeff, Magda, Katrina Van Rhein
Listen for: Miranda's first impressions of Dragonwyck and of Nicholas Van Rhein, and the growing conflict between the Van Rhein family and the tenant farmers at the estate
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.