 |
|||
 |
Empty
|
 |
 |
 |
|||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
Written On The Wind
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
Our DVD Price: £13.99 RRP: 
Availability In Stock - should be despatched within 24 hours. This product will be dispatched from Guernsey. Delivery times
Earn 65 Bonus Points when you buy this product. More info |
Film Description
One of Sirks' best films from the 1950s, in which a millionaire playboy is driven to self-destruction through alcohol and impotence. Bathed in lurid Technicolour.
Film Information
| Director | Douglas Sirk | ||||
| Starring | Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack
|
||||
| Genre | Classic Film
|
||||
| Country | USA | Language | ENGLISH | Year | 1956 |
Technical Details
| Certificate | PG | Length | 95 mins | Label | UPV | ||
| Cat No | 8219936 | Format | DVD | Colour | |||
| Region | 2 | Aspect | 1.85:1 Anamorphic widescreen | ||||
| Subtitles | English HoH. | ||||||
1 Still
 |
Share your thoughts and opinions - write a review
Review by Alex Davidson on 28th January 2005
Rarely has critical reception turned such a volte-face as in the case of Douglas Sirk, a German director who arrived in Hollywood in the 1940s and over the next two decades made a succession of lavish melodramas. Derided by contemporary critics as trashy “women’s pictures” (although all his films were huge commercial successes), it was not until European directors such as Godard and Fassbinder acclaimed his features that critics began to take him seriously, and he is now regarded as one of the most trenchant observers of human nature in cinema.
Sirk’s Written On The Wind is a case in point. It details the decline of the Hadley dynasty, following the marriage of Kyle (Robert Stack), the son of the family, to Lucy (Lauren Bacall), a noble secretary who genuinely loves her husband and doesn’t care about his immense fortune. Kyle’s jealousy of his surrogate brother (Rock Hudson) soon leads to his own destruction, aided by his vindictive sister, Marylee (Dorothy Malone), the Iago of the film.
The obviously artificial sets, hyperbolic performances and torrid dialogue (Kyle: “You’re a filthy liar” Marylee: “I’m filthy – period!”) are distancing techniques for the audience – Sirk, like Brecht, wants us to examine the message behind the images, and these moments of alienation draw attention to the artificiality of cinema, and the superficiality of affluent American life. Although Hudson and Bacall are the nominal leads, Sirk seems more interested in the flawed characters played by Stack and Malone (the latter winning an Oscar for her role). Unable to adapt to their materialistic society, they have been corrupted by it.
Sirk’s films appeal to almost everyone – they can be enjoyed as escapist soap operas or as savage critiques, depending on the viewer’s preference. Pedro Almodovar said of the film: “I have seen Written on the Wind a thousand times, and I cannot wait to see it again.”
View more reviews by Alex Davidson
Hand-picked recommendations of related films
|
Dir: John M. Stahl Gene Tierney stars as a father-fixated girl who picks a husband because of his resemblance to Daddy, and is then... More > |
|
Dir: Otto Preminger Drama based on Francoise Sagan's novel. Jean Seberg plays Cecile, the spoiled 17-year-old daughter of a wealthy ... More > |
|
Dir: Various / TV When Dallas premiered on network television in 1978, it became the first night-time soap opera. Soon thereafter,... More > |
This film is part of the following Film Collections
Including: A Star Is Born, All About My Mother, An Affair To Remember, Bad Education, Black Narcissus, Bonjour Tristesse, Brief Encounter (Lean, 1945), Broken Blossoms, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Dallas (Seasons 1 & 2).
Recommendations from fellow customers
More films directed by Douglas Sirk
More films starring Rock Hudson
by Anthony Mann
More films starring Lauren Bacall
by Howard Hawks
by John Huston
by Don Siegel
Humphrey Bogart Classics (Vol. 1)
More films starring Robert Stack
by Henry Koster
by Jerry Zucker / David Abrahams, Jim/ Zucker
The High and The Mighty (Special Edition)
| Special Offers | ||||||||||||||||
|
More Great Offers
|
| BestSellers | ||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
| Recommended by MovieMail | ||||||||||
|
A curated collection of the best DVDs
Latest Additions
|
||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
| Just Released |
|
Roberta There Will Be Blood The Other Boleyn Girl Cloak and Dagger Picnic at Hanging Rock |
| Coming Soon |
|
You, the Living Margot at the Wedding Screen Icons: Richard Attenborough La Vie de Jesus (Masters of Cinema) Love in the Time of Cholera |
|
||
| Home | Film Catalogue | New Releases | Special Offers | Top 30 | ||
|
||
| Film Collections | Film Media | News | Your Account | Help | Become a MovieMail affiliate | ||
|
||
For questions or assistance, call us on (+44) 0844 776 0900 or email on enquiries@moviemail-online.co.uk © 2004-2007 MovieMail, Ltd., All Rights Reserved. Find out more about MovieMail |
||
|
The Leopard
The Night Of The Hunter
Weekend
Night And Fog
Breathless (Godard, 1959)
