The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960) Watch Online Trailer

In Oklahoma in the 1920s, Ruben Flood loses his job as a traveling salesman, when the company goes bankrupt. This adds to his worries at home. His wife Cora is frigid because of trying to make ends meet. His teenage daughter Reenie is afraid of going out on dates, but eventually makes friends with a troubled Jewish boy Sammy, and his son is a mama's boy. He finally storms out of the house when Cora falsely accuses him of having an affair with Mavis Pruitt.



The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960)
Released: 08 Oct 1960
Runtime: 124 min
Rated: APPROVED
Director: Delbert Mann
Writer(s): Harriet Frank Jr. (screenplay), Irving Ravetch (screenplay), William Inge (based on the play by)
Actors: Robert Preston, Dorothy McGuire, Eve Arden, Angela Lansbury
Awards: Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 1 win & 6 nominations.
IMDB Ratings: 7.4



Plot: Robert Preston plays the flip side of his eternally ebullient Professor Harold Hill in Dark at the Top of the Stairs. Preston portrays an early 20th-century harness salesman, fully aware that his product is rapidly becoming obsolete. He tries to compensate for his own lack of self-esteem by cheating on his patient wife Dorothy McGuire; Preston's "other woman" is played by Angela Lansbury. Meanwhile, daughter Shirley Knight falls in love with Jewish boy Lee Kinsolving, who kills himself in the face of relentless bigotry.