"Written on the Wind", 1956
Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2017 6:40 am
Tonight I watched this Douglas Sirk potboiler after a very long, well-earned hiatus. (The family was watching Australia versus New Zealand in the rugby union and) I spent the night in another room with unmitigated soap played to the hilt to the accompaniment of the melodramatic music of Frank Skinner.
The film was made in 1956 and it seems to have preserved its appearance; no doubt somebody thought it was worthy of restoration. Most of the old tropes were there; oil baron's spoilt son Kyle (Robert Stack) has a drinking problem and, adding insult to injury, thinks he's infertile. Oil baron's daughter Marylee (a chronically lurching and ludicrously foxy Dorothy Malone) is in love with best friend Mitch, who really loves Lucy (Lauren Bacall) - Kyle's wife. Are you ready for this plot? Leaves were rustling, tyres were spinning, alcohol flowed freely, a man falls down stairs to his death, characters were staring menacingly at others from behind curtains, there was a shooting, jealousy in spades, Kyle lurching and laughing under the influence (in a menacing "I've got depression" kind of way!) and the ubiquitous black hired help looked on helplessly with an ominous "there's gonna be a killin' tonight".
I laughed aloud when Marylee did a Douglas Sirk-equivalent 'dance of the seven veils' erotically in front of a picture of Rick (Rock Hudson) while some revolting trumpet jazz became increasingly shrill and loud on the portable record player. Meanwhile, downstairs, old man Hadley is at the end of his tether and his increasing desperation at his lawless and wanton daughter causes him to drop down dead at the top of the stairs, with full choreography. Close-up of a hand clutching a staircase railing and then..well, you know the rest.
The production design was good, if claustrophobic, but I think Rock Hudson must have found it difficult to keep a straight face, hard on the heels of "Giant" the year before. The only similarity to that epic was the existence of oil rigs and very wealthy people who had 'problems'!! Plaudits to Bacall who tried to maintain her considerable class and dignity throughout, despite the fact that this script was a stinker. She would be rewarded for her perseverance the following year with a superb performance in Vincente Minnelli's classy "Designing Woman".
The film was made in 1956 and it seems to have preserved its appearance; no doubt somebody thought it was worthy of restoration. Most of the old tropes were there; oil baron's spoilt son Kyle (Robert Stack) has a drinking problem and, adding insult to injury, thinks he's infertile. Oil baron's daughter Marylee (a chronically lurching and ludicrously foxy Dorothy Malone) is in love with best friend Mitch, who really loves Lucy (Lauren Bacall) - Kyle's wife. Are you ready for this plot? Leaves were rustling, tyres were spinning, alcohol flowed freely, a man falls down stairs to his death, characters were staring menacingly at others from behind curtains, there was a shooting, jealousy in spades, Kyle lurching and laughing under the influence (in a menacing "I've got depression" kind of way!) and the ubiquitous black hired help looked on helplessly with an ominous "there's gonna be a killin' tonight".
I laughed aloud when Marylee did a Douglas Sirk-equivalent 'dance of the seven veils' erotically in front of a picture of Rick (Rock Hudson) while some revolting trumpet jazz became increasingly shrill and loud on the portable record player. Meanwhile, downstairs, old man Hadley is at the end of his tether and his increasing desperation at his lawless and wanton daughter causes him to drop down dead at the top of the stairs, with full choreography. Close-up of a hand clutching a staircase railing and then..well, you know the rest.
The production design was good, if claustrophobic, but I think Rock Hudson must have found it difficult to keep a straight face, hard on the heels of "Giant" the year before. The only similarity to that epic was the existence of oil rigs and very wealthy people who had 'problems'!! Plaudits to Bacall who tried to maintain her considerable class and dignity throughout, despite the fact that this script was a stinker. She would be rewarded for her perseverance the following year with a superb performance in Vincente Minnelli's classy "Designing Woman".