Written on the Wind

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The Technicolor expressionism of Douglas Sirk reached a fever pitch with this wildly operatic melodrama, 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 visuals, Written on the Wind is as perverse (and entertaining!) a family portrait as has ever been splashed across the screen. (Dir. by Douglas Sirk, 1956, USA, 99 mins., Not Rated)