"The Dark Secret of Harvest Home" debuted when I was a teen and all the kids in my high school seemed to be talking about it. Well, I missed it and assumed I was really unfortunate. However, after seeing it decades later, I wonder what all the hubbub was about in the first place. It's NOT a particularly good mini-series....and certainly not among Bette Davis' better films in the latter part of her career.
The problem with this film comes down to one thing...PACING. The original film version (it was edited down several times) is 3 hours and 48 minutes (not the 5 hours listed on IMDB) and I really wish I'd seen the heavily truncated 2 hour version. Otherwise, it's an endurance contest and feels like the film is keeping its secrets as long as possible in order to pad the story out to such a long running time.
The problem with this film comes down to one thing...PACING. The original film version (it was edited down several times) is 3 hours and 48 minutes (not the 5 hours listed on IMDB) and I really wish I'd seen the heavily truncated 2 hour version. Otherwise, it's an endurance contest and feels like the film is keeping its secrets as long as possible in order to pad the story out to such a long running time.