Sudsy soap opera action
Added 9/11/2009
The Bottom Line:
Though some revisionist critics claim that director Douglas Sirk was "subversive," Written on the Wind functions best as straight melodrama: if you're in the mood for some great soap opera starring Rock Hudson and Robert Stack which includes impotence, filial jealousy, oil barons, murder, and that great 50's staple nymphomania which clocks in at about 90 minutes, you could scarcely find a better film.
3/4
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More Than Melodrama
Added 3/1/2009
Other reviewers seem to heap back-handed praise on "Written on the Wind" by describing it as melodrama or soap opera. For sure, director Douglas Sirk had a flair for glitz but I found something a little Shakespearean about this account of a doomed industrialist family. Sirk cleverly telegraphs the events that will doom playboy Kyle Hadley(Robert Stack). The film begins we view Hadley as a spoiled rich brat. As the film progresses it's revealed that Hadley is a man trapped by his own demons and neuroses that aren't really spelled out considering the time the film was made, 1956. That's probably all for the better because it's more compelling to allow the audience to draw their own conclusions. Hadley reaches out to his trouble-shooter played by Rock Hudson and his wife(Lauren Bacall) but despite their best efforts they cannot penetrate Hadley's veneer. Stack delivers probably the best work of his career that will dispell any notions of the monotone Eliot Ness and he is abetted by an alluring Dorothy Malone as Hadley's temptress sister. This may be director Douglas Sirk's most ambitious and best film. Essential is an understatement.
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First-rate melodrama!
Added 8/21/2008
Written on the wind inaugurated formally the series of melodrama but told with tinge of tragic essence about an play-boy millionaire addict to alcohol and his nymphomaniac sister, who are potential inheritors of a financial oil-empire, but that unavoidable will drag down and eventually destroy all what it interposes in their road.
Powerful performances of Dorothy Malone (who deservedly won an Oscar as Best supporting actress and a nomination for Robert Stack as best Supporting Actor, who might be well regarded as the best performance in his lifetime in the big screen).
Douglas Sirk is the same director of the cult movie "Imitation of life" (who inspired to REM in the homonymous song) and whose exerted in Fassbinder is more than obvious.
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written on the wind
Added 7/30/2008
I loved this movie, brings back very good memories of when i watched it with my mom. I have looked forever for it. interesting story line, poor rock hudson to fall in love and have his best friend marry her. was interesting all the kids were spoiled rotten, tons of money and the only loyal one was the outsider that got adopted in.
2 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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Written on the Wind
Added 6/27/2007
Sirk's stirring melodrama about the meltdown of an oil-baron family is a high-strung potboiler mixing rage, impotence, money, sex, anxiety, and murder in one flaming concoction. Visually sumptuous and redolent with garish colors to match the Hadleys' bursting emotions, "Wind" boasts the fantastic talents of Hudson and Bacall as straight-arrow types in a hellish situation. The chiseled Stack is a mess of masculine anguish as hard-drinking Kyle, and Robert Keith is excellent as the Hadley patriarch, but Oscar winner Dorothy Malone takes the prize for her outlandishly catty, slutty turn as Marylee. "Wind" may not be subtle, but it's a whirlwind of (melo)dramatic delights.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Sudsy soap opera action
Added 9/11/2009
The Bottom Line:
Though some revisionist critics claim that director Douglas Sirk was "subversive," Written on the Wind functions best as straight melodrama: if you're in the mood for some great soap opera starring Rock Hudson and Robert Stack which includes impotence, filial jealousy, oil barons, murder, and that great 50's staple nymphomania which clocks in at about 90 minutes, you could scarcely find a better film.
3/4
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
More Than Melodrama
Added 3/1/2009
Other reviewers seem to heap back-handed praise on "Written on the Wind" by describing it as melodrama or soap opera. For sure, director Douglas Sirk had a flair for glitz but I found something a little Shakespearean about this account of a doomed industrialist family. Sirk cleverly telegraphs the events that will doom playboy Kyle Hadley(Robert Stack). The film begins we view Hadley as a spoiled rich brat. As the film progresses it's revealed that Hadley is a man trapped by his own demons and neuroses that aren't really spelled out considering the time the film was made, 1956. That's probably all for the better because it's more compelling to allow the audience to draw their own conclusions. Hadley reaches out to his trouble-shooter played by Rock Hudson and his wife(Lauren Bacall) but despite their best efforts they cannot penetrate Hadley's veneer. Stack delivers probably the best work of his career that will dispell any notions of the monotone Eliot Ness and he is abetted by an alluring Dorothy Malone as Hadley's temptress sister. This may be director Douglas Sirk's most ambitious and best film. Essential is an understatement.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
First-rate melodrama!
Added 8/21/2008
Written on the wind inaugurated formally the series of melodrama but told with tinge of tragic essence about an play-boy millionaire addict to alcohol and his nymphomaniac sister, who are potential inheritors of a financial oil-empire, but that unavoidable will drag down and eventually destroy all what it interposes in their road.
Powerful performances of Dorothy Malone (who deservedly won an Oscar as Best supporting actress and a nomination for Robert Stack as best Supporting Actor, who might be well regarded as the best performance in his lifetime in the big screen).
Douglas Sirk is the same director of the cult movie "Imitation of life" (who inspired to REM in the homonymous song) and whose exerted in Fassbinder is more than obvious.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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