The Dark at the Top of the Stairs

A Pulitzer Prize winner in its Broadway version, William Inge's play based on memories of his Oklahoman youth in the '20s suffers here from undue reverence from both Mann and screenwriters Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank - usually much sharper with oddball Westerns or liberal dramas for Martin Ritt - and undue hamming from a wildly disparate cast. Small-town domestic intrigues push one way, sub-plots about adolescent fears and anti-Semitism pull another.