Written on the Wind (1956, Douglas Sirk) (Patreon)

75/100

Second viewing, last seen 1995. Sirk goes into overdrive from the jump, introducing his cast of characters in the most grandiose way imaginable; as those quivering, ultra-saturated images assault the screen, it's hard to imagine any conventional narrative—however tawdry—living up to them. Whose emotions are tempestuous enough to merit the gust of leaves that swirl around Kyle Hadley as he drunkenly stumbles through his front door? In truth, the melodrama that follows (or precedes, chronologically speaking) could scarcely be more ordinary: an alcoholic who cleans up his act but eventually falls off the wagon; a mensch miserably in love with his best buddy's wife; a poor little rich girl trying to bury the pain of one man’s rejection by seducing all of the others (and otherwise just generally wreaking havoc). Nothing earth-shattering, but Sirk films it as if it were, demonstrating how fervid style can elevate banal material. Even I, with my defective L-cone, can see how insanely lush these colors are, and there are two performances to match, with Hudson and Bacall providing tonal balance via relative serenity. (This might be Hudson's most nuanced work, though he benefits from the retroactive subtext of Mitch's insistence that he loves Marylee like a brother.) The whole "Your daughter is a tramp!" thing remains a major stumbling block, only because the film itself clearly buys into it; as I've noted before, how much I'm bothered by older movies' sexism/racism depends on how central a role it plays, and it's foregrounded quite heavily here (to the point where Marylee's libido implicitly kills her father!). At the same time, though, Malone richly deserved her Oscar, and all I had to do, whenever I began to feel put off by the character's over-the-top heavy breathing, was think of the radically different affect she exhibits as The Big Sleep's brainy-horny bookstore clerk. Movie lost me a bit with the dopey inquest epilogue (which seems to exist mostly because a '50s audience familiar with Libby Holman would have expected it), won me back with the shot of Marylee cradling her dad's phallic model derrick in front of his portrait (even though the incestuous link to Mitch feels like kind of a reach). What can a great director achieve with a mediocre script? Start here.