IMDb RATING
6.5/10
1.1K
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A woman returns to the USA after a German U-boat sank her ship, and finds out that someone wants to kill her for her inheritance.A woman returns to the USA after a German U-boat sank her ship, and finds out that someone wants to kill her for her inheritance.A woman returns to the USA after a German U-boat sank her ship, and finds out that someone wants to kill her for her inheritance.
Odette Myrtil
- Mama Boudreaux
- (as Odette Myrtle)
Rita Beery
- Nurse
- (uncredited)
Danny Borzage
- Accordionist
- (uncredited)
Paul E. Burns
- Station Master
- (uncredited)
Eileen Coghlan
- Jeanette
- (uncredited)
Gino Corrado
- Party Guest
- (uncredited)
Charles Ferguson
- Party Guest
- (uncredited)
Donald Kerr
- Party Guest
- (uncredited)
Art Laforrest
- Party Guest
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- Trivia"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on November 27, 1944 with Merle Oberon and Thomas Mitchell reprising their film roles.
- GoofsDr. George Grover drives Leslie Calvin to Rossignol in his car. As the car makes a left turn as it passes the camera it is clear that Leslie Calvin is driving the car, whereas in the following shot Dr. Grover is driving his car.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Aweful Movies with Deadly Earnest: Dark Waters (1970)
Featured review
De Toth fails to elevate Dark Waters above standard Gothic `jep'
The imperiled woman in a great spooky house remains one of Hollywood's most honorable of hackneyed plots. These `jeps' ask us to accept that a woman, usually young, beautiful and sophisticated, sinks deeper into danger despite all the warning signals blinking around her. Still, a few directors have managed to elevate the material a notch or two above the predictable: Jacques Tourneur in Experiment Perilous, Fritz Lang in House by the River, Douglas Sirk in Sleep, My Love. Any hopes that Andre de Toth (The Pitfall, Crime Wave) might work the same black magic crumble, however, with his early Gothic noir, Dark Waters.
Merle Oberon a classic Eurasian beauty but never much of an actor is the survivor of a ship torpedoed by the Japanese in the East Indies (the ship set out from what the movie calls Batavia but we know as Jakarta). Somehow, she ends up in New Orleans, where an aunt and uncle keep a moldering plantation in nearby bayou country. She arrives there, under the care of a doctor (Franchot Tone; has it ever been remarked that he and Ralph Bellamy share the same set of vocal cords?). But, upon her arrival, we start to suspect , long before she, that ALL IS NOT AS IT SEEMS.
The aunt (Fay Bainter) and uncle extend her a back-handed welcome but seem preoccupied; they also seem to get pieces of the family history wrong. In addition, they're under the thumb of their plantation manager (Thomas Mitchell, who of course got his start running Tara) and his weasly assistant, Elisha Cook, Jr. (who does his expected shtik; did he never weary of playing this dumb but cocky chump?).
The story advances neither swiftly nor arrestingly. Attempts to `gaslight' Oberon amount to a bedside lamp that switches off then on again, and distant voices beckoning her to the quicksand which studs the surrounding swampland. Slowly, the light begins to dawn behind Oberon's big, perfectly made-up eyes...
And that's just about all there is to Dark Waters hot spells and Spanish moss. De Toth, who was able to peer deep into the background of middle-class complacency in The Pitfall, a few years later, seems to have taken a case of the vapors amid all this languid Louisiana atmosphere. All he comes up with is this slow, flaccid film.
Merle Oberon a classic Eurasian beauty but never much of an actor is the survivor of a ship torpedoed by the Japanese in the East Indies (the ship set out from what the movie calls Batavia but we know as Jakarta). Somehow, she ends up in New Orleans, where an aunt and uncle keep a moldering plantation in nearby bayou country. She arrives there, under the care of a doctor (Franchot Tone; has it ever been remarked that he and Ralph Bellamy share the same set of vocal cords?). But, upon her arrival, we start to suspect , long before she, that ALL IS NOT AS IT SEEMS.
The aunt (Fay Bainter) and uncle extend her a back-handed welcome but seem preoccupied; they also seem to get pieces of the family history wrong. In addition, they're under the thumb of their plantation manager (Thomas Mitchell, who of course got his start running Tara) and his weasly assistant, Elisha Cook, Jr. (who does his expected shtik; did he never weary of playing this dumb but cocky chump?).
The story advances neither swiftly nor arrestingly. Attempts to `gaslight' Oberon amount to a bedside lamp that switches off then on again, and distant voices beckoning her to the quicksand which studs the surrounding swampland. Slowly, the light begins to dawn behind Oberon's big, perfectly made-up eyes...
And that's just about all there is to Dark Waters hot spells and Spanish moss. De Toth, who was able to peer deep into the background of middle-class complacency in The Pitfall, a few years later, seems to have taken a case of the vapors amid all this languid Louisiana atmosphere. All he comes up with is this slow, flaccid film.
helpful•1911
- bmacv
- May 19, 2002
- How long is Dark Waters?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Mörka vatten
- Filming locations
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime1 hour 30 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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