03/11/2005 The only thing you'd ever manage to kill would be a bottle,
says the bored horny blonde to her brother in a melodrama by
Douglas Sirk, master of the genre.
Written on the Wind features Rock Hudson in a Texan oil family drama, not entirely unlike his role the same year in the star loaded Giant for which director George Stevens got an Oscar. Sirk didn't (ever) get nominated.
Both movies have their tragic oil millionaire, and teaming up James Dean with Elizabeth Taylor pleads for Giant, especially because I had trouble in accepting Lauren Bacall falling and staying in love with her husband.
Luckily there is Sirk to focus on the tragedy in all its sleazy drunken details of cowardice and teardom, manifesting himself as both a stylish master and the more adventurous director of the two, which I clearly fail to illustrate here.
I'd say Sirk gave the fun part to Dorothy Malone along with the pink roadster she gets to drive,
building up to a clean one minute break for her to win an oscar as best supporting actress near the end of the film,
in a court scene that still is capable of grabbing a 2005 art house audience by its throat.
Nice.
