Magnificent Obsession (1954)
Country: US
Technical: Technicolor 108m
Director: Douglas Sirk
Cast: Rock Hudson, Jane Wyman, Otto Kruger, Agnes Moorehead, Barbara Rush
Synopsis:
When a reckless and self-obsessed playboy indirectly causes the death of a local philanthropist, and his widow's loss of sight, a chance encounter prompts him to reform his life and devote himself to the welfare of others.
Review:
A scenario so preposterous it could only have been devised in the imagination of a crackpot Christian novelist is turned by Sirk into a full-throated Technicolor melodrama that fires on all cylinders. Taking the glossy Universal production and suffering in mink characters at face value, he holds a mirror up to how Americans of the day would have liked to be, to look, to dress, to live, if only they had the money. The idea that 'he can afford to be so selfless with all his money' contains an irony that cannot have been lost on the émigré director. And yet he holds all that up his sleeve, leaving us to wallow in the fantasy. As a piece of drama it is total kitsch, of course, but as film-making it knows exactly what it is doing, looks amazing, and keeps moving.
Country: US
Technical: Technicolor 108m
Director: Douglas Sirk
Cast: Rock Hudson, Jane Wyman, Otto Kruger, Agnes Moorehead, Barbara Rush
Synopsis:
When a reckless and self-obsessed playboy indirectly causes the death of a local philanthropist, and his widow's loss of sight, a chance encounter prompts him to reform his life and devote himself to the welfare of others.
Review:
A scenario so preposterous it could only have been devised in the imagination of a crackpot Christian novelist is turned by Sirk into a full-throated Technicolor melodrama that fires on all cylinders. Taking the glossy Universal production and suffering in mink characters at face value, he holds a mirror up to how Americans of the day would have liked to be, to look, to dress, to live, if only they had the money. The idea that 'he can afford to be so selfless with all his money' contains an irony that cannot have been lost on the émigré director. And yet he holds all that up his sleeve, leaving us to wallow in the fantasy. As a piece of drama it is total kitsch, of course, but as film-making it knows exactly what it is doing, looks amazing, and keeps moving.
Country: US
Technical: Technicolor 108m
Director: Douglas Sirk
Cast: Rock Hudson, Jane Wyman, Otto Kruger, Agnes Moorehead, Barbara Rush
Synopsis:
When a reckless and self-obsessed playboy indirectly causes the death of a local philanthropist, and his widow's loss of sight, a chance encounter prompts him to reform his life and devote himself to the welfare of others.
Review:
A scenario so preposterous it could only have been devised in the imagination of a crackpot Christian novelist is turned by Sirk into a full-throated Technicolor melodrama that fires on all cylinders. Taking the glossy Universal production and suffering in mink characters at face value, he holds a mirror up to how Americans of the day would have liked to be, to look, to dress, to live, if only they had the money. The idea that 'he can afford to be so selfless with all his money' contains an irony that cannot have been lost on the émigré director. And yet he holds all that up his sleeve, leaving us to wallow in the fantasy. As a piece of drama it is total kitsch, of course, but as film-making it knows exactly what it is doing, looks amazing, and keeps moving.