Written on the Wind **** (1956, Lauren Bacall, Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone) – Classic Movie Review 1545

Director Douglas Sirk’s penetrating, inspired 1956 movie expose of the idle, pointless lives of the self-destructive rich centres on an ultra-wealthy Texas oil family. Dorothy Malone won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for playing the sex-crazed sister of playboy Robert Stack.

It stars Lauren Bacall, as smart and sassy Lucy Hadley, who is married to alcoholic playboy Kyle (Robert Stack), whose maniacal, crazy, nymphomaniac sister Marylee (Dorothy Malone) loves Kyle’s poor but hard-working best friend, the handsome, reliable regular guy Mitch Wayne (Rock Hudson), who is secretly in love with Lucy.

This highly polished, deliriously artificial Fifties melodrama is emotionally over-the-top quality soap opera entertainment. And maybe it is something a lot more in terms of a true work of art if you subscribe to the regularly acknowledged cult status of Sirk, who is certainly delivering one of his best movies here. It undeniably looks and sounds a treat, with George Zuckerman’s screenplay (based on the novel by Robert Wilder), Russell Metty’s cinematography, Frank Skinner and Victor Young’s score, and Alexander Golitzen and Robert Clatworthy’s production designs.

The acting is smart, sophisticated and eye-catching all round, but it was only Malone who won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress. Stack was nominated as Best Supporting Actor and the Sammy Cahn-Victor Young title song was also nominated as Best Original Song. Young’s nomination for the song’s music was posthumous.

Robert Keith, Grant Williams, Edward Platt, Harry Shannon, John Larch, William Schallert and Robert J Wilke are also in the notable character actor cast.

Alas Humphrey Bogart was unimpressed by the film and advised his wife Bacall not to make another like it.

Irreplaceable, much adored screen legend Lauren Bacall died on August 12 2014, aged 89.

Esteemed and prolific character actor William Schallert died on 8 May 2016. aged 93.

Dorothy Malone (1925–2018).

The blonde, sultry Dorothy Malone, matriarch of TV’s Peyton Place, died on 19 January 2018, aged 92. She also starred in the biopic Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) and played in The Big Sleep (1946), Artists and Models (1955) and Basic Instinct (1992).

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1545

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