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The Criterion Collection

Written on the Wind (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

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Format: Blu-ray February 1, 2022


Description

The Technicolor expressionism of Douglas Sirk reached a fever pitch with this operatic tragedy, which finds the director pushing his florid visuals and his critiques of American culture to their subversive extremes. Alcoholism, nymphomania, impotence, and deadly jealousy—these are just some of the toxins coursing through a massively wealthy, degenerate Texan oil family. When a sensible secretary (Lauren Bacall) has the misfortune of marrying the clan’s neurotic scion (Robert Stack), it drives a wedge between him and his lifelong best friend (Rock Hudson) that unleashes a maelstrom of psychosexual angst and fury. Featuring an unforgettably debauched, Oscar-winning supporting performance by Dorothy Malone and some of Sirk’s most eye-popping mise-en- scène, Written on the Wind is as perverse a family portrait as has ever been splashed across the screen. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrackActing for Douglas Sirk, a 2008 documentary featuring archival interviews with Sirk; actors Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, and Dorothy Malone; and producer Albert ZugsmithNew interview with film scholar Patricia White about the film and melodramaTrailerEnglish subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearingPLUS: An essay by filmmaker and critic Blair McClendon

Genre: Drama


Format: Blu-ray


Contributor: Harry Shannon, Edward Platt, Robert Stack, Rock Hudson, Robert Keith, Dorothy Malone, Douglas Sirk, John Larch, Grant Williams, Robert J. Wilke, Lauren Bacall See more


Language: English


Studio: The Criterion Collection


MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ NR (Not Rated)


Package Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.8 x 6.3 x 0.6 inches; 5.92 ounces


Director ‏ : ‎ Douglas Sirk


Media Format ‏ : ‎ Blu-ray


Release date ‏ : ‎ February 1, 2022


Actors ‏ : ‎ Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Robert Keith


Studio ‏ : ‎ The Criterion Collection


Country of Origin ‏ : ‎ USA


Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1


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Top Amazon Reviews

    • Feuilles mortes
Presented here in an excellent DVD from Criterion, Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind may well have been primarily aimed at cashing in on the huge success of Warners' blockbuster Giant, directed by George Stevens. Both films deal with the doings of Texas millionaires; not so coincidentally, both films star Rock Hudson. But Giant has dated badly, and its epic pretensions seem woefully bloated today. It's forgivable to have made a Classic Comics adaptation of War and Peace as King Vidor did, but far less pardonable to have adapted an Edna Ferber potboiler as it were War and Peace. By contrast, Sirk's lurid melodrama remains a highly entertaining, if at times overwrought vehicle. Certainly Universal-International and Sirk made no bones about catering to the audience's fantasies in depicting the lifestyles of the rich and famous. But in a country where the difference between movie audiences and the rich and famous has often been only one of money, Written on the Wind by no means lacks a basis in reality. The movie's action effectively dramatizes the daydreams many people would act out if they suddenly had the wealth of the Hadley family in this film. Based on a novel by Robert Wilder, Written on the Wind reprises a plot motif that had appeared before in Vincente Minelli's Undercurrent and Max Ophul's Caught, recounting the fate of a young woman who unwarily marries an unbalanced wealthy man probably modeled upon Howard Hughes. Kyle Hadley (Robert Stack), an alcoholic playboy given to sleeping with a pistol under his pillow, is the heir to an oil fortune who weds Lucy Moore (Lauren Bacall) and takes her back to the family homestead with the intent of continuing the Hadley dynasty. But apparent sterility frustrates his hopes, and when Lucy becomes pregnant, he accuses her of having an affair with his best friend, Mitch Wayne (Rock Hudson), a suspicion encouraged by Kyle's venomous, scheming sister, Marylee (Dorothy Malone), who spends her spare time sleeping with the town studs. Freudian family sagas were quite in vogue in 1956, both in stage productions like Tennessee William's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and in films such as Elia Kazan's adaptation of John Steinbeck's East of Eden. Kyle is recognizably a tortured soul in the vein of James Dean's Cal in East of Eden, but the screenplay lacks what a follower of New Criticism would have called an objective correlative. Written on the Wind offers little plausible explanation for its hero's self-destructive behavior. While Kyle's father reproaches himself for having failed to live up to his paternal responsibilities, he hardly seems to have done anything to justify the curse that has descended on his household. Less naïve contemporary viewers-a fortiori viewers today--might well have suspected other problems lurking behind the false front of Kyle's sterility: both an incestuous attraction to his sister and an unacknowledged homosexual attachment to the more virile and successful Mitch. But nothing of that kind could have gotten past the PCA. When Richard Brooks made his execrable version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, he replaced Brick's longing for his dead buddy, the cause of his estrangement from his wife, with straightforward-and sexually straight-adultery between Maggie and Skipper. So Written on the Wind falls back on the stock clichés of the genre, making its enfants terribles into a pair of spoiled rich kids. Nonetheless, Sirk gets away with an outrageously symbolic shot when the film ends with Marylee caressing a phallic-looking replica of an oil well as her substitute for the hunky Mitch, who has eluded her grasp. Where Brooks changed a serious play into despicable schlock, Sirk was able to inject some class into this febrile soap opera, although with rather odd results. The director's fundamental commitment to aestheticism, a constant of his career, enabled him to treat such an unpromising subject with a remarkable degree of artistic objectivity. In the words of Andrew Sarris, "The essence of Sirkian cinema is the confrontation of all material, however fanciful and improbable." However, Sirks's calculated tastefulness in composing shots, which leaves no detail to chance, clashes with the almost stupefying tastelessness of settings that resemble garish color ads for home interiors or fancy resorts, and unfold before the spectator's eyes a veritable saturnalia of fetishism-commodity and otherwise. Looking at Written on the Wind almost fifty years later offers something of the voyeuristic pleasure of studying life in the dreary Eisenhower years through a telephoto lens-just as did the protagonist of Hitchcock's Rear Window. At the same time, Russell Metty's color cinematography so strongly accentuates the flamboyant mise en scene that after a while the film begins to take on an oneiric quality-upper middle-class culture as a collective hallucination. But Written on the Wind is no 1960s acid trip like Easy Rider or Performance, and Sirk inscribes his signature indelibly on every image in the film. It is no small tribute to the director's formidable skill as a stylist that in the opening shots he brilliantly establishes the tone of the entire movie that is to follow in what might seem a marginal flourish: the dead leaves that swirl around Kyle and even follow him into the family mansion when he arrives for the confrontation with Mitch and Marylee that will culminate in his death. No harbinger of spring these, the leaves thematically conjoin the mortality of the character, the mortality of an artistic style, and the mortality of the studio system itself in a single breathtaking gesture. At one point, Kyle offers a toast to "The truth, which is anything but beautiful." What better epigraph could Sirk have chosen for this movie! ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2005 by Dave Clayton
    • Good stuff!
Arrived earlier than expected and in perfect condition
Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2024 by Gina Ventresca
    • Written on the Wind (The Criterion Collection DVD)
Very good, glossy Douglas Sirk 1956 romantic melodrama. Rock Hudson plays an oil industry engineer who works for a magnate who partially raised him alongside his son and daughter. The son is played by Robert Stack as an over-indulged rich boy who has never worked a day in his life, with money coming out of his ears and has a deep affection for booze. Dorothy Malone plays the daughter, another over-indulged spoiled brat with money to burn and a penchant for sleeping around with anything in pants and an unfulfilled yen for Hudson. He sees her as a former sister, and now as a skank for who he still has brotherly affection. Lauren Bacall plays the secretary who falls in love with Stack and marries him, but is loved by Hudson. She realizes her mistake but is willing to fulfill her obligation to Stack. Stack's biggest problem, among many, is that he has a low sperm count and may never father a child, which he feels he needs to do so as to please his father and outman Hudson. The best moments are when Malone mambos up a storm at any given moment. When she mambos with Hudson, WOW, what a moment. Hudson dances like he has a broom taped to his back. Malone even mad mambos while her poor put-upon dad falls down the stairs and dies. Watch this torrid soap opera. The Criterion Collection DVD is excellent quality with a few extras. Very entertaining and highly recommended. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2016 by Celia Trimboli
    • An Entertaining Melodrama from Douglas Sirk
For fans of 1950s cinema this movie is a no-brainer. Sirk brings his usual flair for color and drama but notches it all the way up to 10, to the point that the movie almost seems impressionistic. If you're a fan of post WW2 cinema, this movie will be a great addition to your collection. The remaster looks fantastic, the colors pop and the Criterion extras are interesting. Compared to other Sirk movies, the characters in this one are a bit more removed from most viewers' own life experiences, which results in some distance between viewer and characters on screen. The dialogue is also a bit stilted, which isn't uncommon for movies of the era. Those issues aside, if you can get past them, the movie is an enjoyable over the top melodrama well worth its price. Special mention goes to Dorothy Malone, playing the spoiled trampy sister of one of the main characters. She tackles her role with relish and, more than any of the other actors, matches the movie's garish tone with aplomb. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2023 by R. Neal
    • Great cast and story
I really wasn’t sure about the story or anything when I got the movie. I bought it because of a couple of actors in it. Mine was an all the way through the other about two minutes. I normally don’t watch dramatic movies like this I prefer horror or science-fiction. It grabbed me from the beginning. And my attentions stayed with it. Can’t say that for a lot of movies, but this had all the qualities of a good movie one that a person can enjoy. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2023 by Charles Boatwright

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