THE DARK SECRET OF HARVEST HOME

Baleful Bette Davis

THE DARK SECRET OF HARVEST HOME (1978 mini-series). Director: Leo Penn. 

Artist Nick Constantine (David Ackroyd), his wife, Beth (Joanna Miles of Grave Misconduct), and asthma-afflicted daughter Kate (Rosanna Arquette), move from New York City to the Connecticut farming community of Cornwall Combe. The Constantine family are befriended by the ageless Widow Fortune (Bette Davis), who believes in and adheres to the "old ways." David learns that anyone -- such as young Worthy Pettinger (Michael O'Keefe) -- who prefers modern ways and wants to get out of Cornwall Combe becomes an enemy of the town (assuming they'll even let him leave). Then there's the case of dead Grace Eberdeen, buried in unconsecrated ground, and supposedly responsible for a period of dark days several years before. Nick not only tries to find out more about Grace and what actually happened to her, but plumbs the secrets of the Harvest Home celebration, where the young lord and his lady will "make the corn." But Nick may wish he had never become curious about any of it ... 

Joanna Miles and David Ackroyd

The Dark Secret of Harvest Home is based on Thomas Tryon's novel "Harvest Home" and is an amalgam of towns with dread secrets, paganism, human sacrifice, in-breeding, acromegaly, with a heady dose of eroticism and a soupcon of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" and The Wicker Man (which came out in '73, the same year Tryon's novel was published) mixed in for good measure. Tryon's book was hardly the first work of horror fiction to deal with the essential subject matter, as there were "towns with dread secrets" and paganism in the works of such authors as Arthur Machen and H. P. Lovecraft, among many others. Tryon, like King who followed in his wake (aside from his first couple of books), added some modern touches and characters, and emphasized characterization a bit more than in the past, but otherwise nothing was very new. The book is well-written and detailed if very deliberately paced, almost tedious at times, but it subtly builds some suspense and is modestly memorable; however its length works against it and there is nothing subtle about the rather outrageous finale. One tends to think that Nick (actually Ned in the novel) is way too obsessed with Grace Eberdeen and past events, but the movie corrects that when Nick gets a contract to publish an illustrated book about the whole business. As some critics of the time noted, there was way to much about corn. 

Michael O'Keefe and Rosanna Arquette

Like the novel, the telefilm -- which is nearly four hours long -- is too long in the telling (it almost takes as long to watch the movie as to read the book!) A perfectly good two-hour film could have been made from the novel. But if you have wisely skipped the book before watching the telefilm you may find the picture entertaining. David Ackroyd makes a handsome and competent, if rather cold, leading man, although there's just something lacking in Joanna Miles. Bette Davis was at the point in her career where she had little control over her high-pitched and unpleasant voice, and her performance is blah and unmemorable. There are, however, notable performances from Arquette and O'Keefe, as well as John Calvin as hunk Justin Hooke, Rene Auberjonois [Eyes of Laura Mars] as an ill-fated peddler, Lina Raymond as the sexy Tamar Penrose, and Norman Lloyd [Saboteur] as old Amys, the town bellringer. Tracey Gold plays the weird little girl, Missy Penrose. 

Although there were a few changes made from book to telefilm -- there's much more about the family's life in Manhattan and it also refers to an early affair of Nick's that was not in the book -- it basically follows the story and has the same ending. This ending, which is quite depressing, can be viewed as Woman Power Gone Amok or blatant misogyny! 

Verdict: A witch by any other name. **1/2.