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| Written on the Wind (1956) | |
| Background
Sirk's most successful melodramas of the mid-to-late 50s decade included the following - predominantly from Universal-International:
This vivid, gaudy and slightly campy Technicolor film, from a screenplay by George Zuckerman that was adapted from Robert Wilder's best-selling novel of the same name, centered on the frenzied dynamics within a self-destructing, filthy-rich (literally) Texas oil family named Hadley.
In Sirk's version, the bourgeois, immoral, blood-poisoned, money-corrupted clan was composed of a tycoon patriarch (Keith), an alcoholic, profligate, insecure playboy heir Kyle (Stack), a lustful daughter Marylee (Malone), and their stable, responsible, less-wealthy family friend and boyhood playmate Mitch (Hudson) who supportively held the family together. Dysfunctional tensions rose when the patriarch's booze-soaked son quickly courted and married the company's respectable, sensible good-girl executive secretary Lucy (Bacall). Kyle's self-pitying fears of impotency (sexual and otherwise) and jealousy - inflamed by his debauched and trashy sister - soon led to the film's climactic shoot-out (shown in flashback in the film's opening). One of the film's posters briefly and dramatically described each character:
The film's tagline pronounced:
The film included such sordid subjects as nymphomania, alcoholism, murderous jealousy and rage, phallic power and infertility, miscarriage, back-stabbing emotional blackmail, and illusory materialistic happiness. It has often been noted that Sirk's film came at the same time as George Stevens' epic Giant (1956) - another tale of a Texas family with Rock Hudson. And TV's popular Dallas (on CBS-TV from 1978-1991) and Dynasty (on ABC-TV from 1981-89) - two prime-time soaps in the 80s, owe their heritage to Sirk. This great film was nominated in three Academy Award categories, including Best Supporting Actor (Robert Stack who should have won, but lost to Anthony Quinn for Lust for Life) and Best Song ("Written on the Wind"), with Dorothy Malone taking home the Best Supporting Actress Oscar (her sole career nomination and win) for an overacted slinky, catty role as a sex-obsessed, wild, nymphomaniacal, provocative member of the Texas oil dynasty's family. [Note: She is probably best remembered for her earlier role as the glasses-wearing bookshop assistant who dallies with Humphrey Bogart after closing shop on a rainy day in The Big Sleep (1946).] This was the sixth of eight films that Sirk made with Hudson. Plot SynopsisPrologue - Opening Murder Scene: November 6, 1956 (Tuesday) Under the credits, the film opened with a flash-forward to events that would occur a year later in the film's climax. The opening epilogue served to introduce the major players without any dialogue except for the film's theme song, "Written on the Wind," sung by the Four Aces (music by Victor Young, lyrics by Sammy Cahn):
A yellow sportster roared through a landscape covered with pumping, phallic oil wells. A major architectural structure in town, prominently jutting into the air like an erect protrusion, was emblazoned with a large H (a company logo signifying the "Hadley Oil Company"). It was a twilight autumn evening in the ugly town of Hadley, Texas (population 24,554), named after the oil tycoon head. The wind blew the dying leaves from trees. The driver was drunken son Kyle Hadley (Robert Stack) returning from a wrong-side-of-town bar to his white-columned mansion estate. Noticing his return from an upstairs bedroom was Mitch Wayne (Rock Hudson) with Kyle's stricken wife Lucy (Lauren Bacall). Kyle smashed his whiskey bottle against the side of the brick house and stormed into the downstairs study after his blonde sister (with eyes spotlighted) Marylee Hadley (Dorothy Malone) listened from her upstairs bedroom. Dead leaves were blown through the open front door into the empty foyer as Marylee swooped down the long staircase. From outside, a gunshot was heard off-screen from inside the mansion, and an unidentified figure staggered out, dropped the gun, and collapsed onto the estate's driveway. Lucy fainted upstairs, as the camera zoomed toward a closeup of a desk calendar, reading Tuesday, November 6, 1956. The wind rifled the pages back to Monday, October 24, 1955, a year earlier, to flash-back to events that led up to the tragedy. Flashback: October 24, 1955 (Monday) Kyle Hadley's Romantic Advances on Executive Secretary Lucy Moore: Single, hard-working Lucy Moore had recently been hired as executive secretary in the New York offices of an ad agency that was working on a publicity campaign for one of its clients - the Hadley Oil Company, ruled by patriarch Jasper Hadley (Robert Keith), Kyle's father. [Note: An artificial, painted skyline of Manhattan was viewed outside the company's windows.] The oil company's geologist and trusted, smooth-talking right-hand "sidekick" Mitch Wayne entered Lucy's office where he noticed Lucy's shapely, disembodied legs behind a display of poster boards. She had mistaken handsome Mitch for the oil company son-heir Kyle Hadley ("Prince Charming of the oil empire"), often featured in the tabloids. Kyle was the big-spending, profligate, impulsive manager of the Hadley oil business with a reputation for being a "dashing" playboy. He had sent the level-headed Mitch to urgently summon Lucy to a "business conference" at 21, a posh New York restaurant. The millionaire had flown 1,380 miles to NY for a steak sandwich. Mitch's early interest in Lucy was hinted at with his statement as they rode in a taxi to the restaurant: "Maybe we're two of a kind." Kyle was already dining with other ladies in the restaurant, and asked to describe his close colleague Mitch:
Kyle was pleased to formally meet the attractive and intelligent Lucy, already favorably positioned as "a member of the happy, happy Hadley Industrial Family." (She had once caught Kyle's roving eye in the office.) After a champagne toast, Kyle learned that Lucy was from a small-town in Indiana, and he boasted that he could "put it on the map" if only asked. Unaffected, the clean-living, career-oriented Lucy explained how she wished to become a suburban wife "with a husband, mortgage and children" and to pursue her career in advertising. Kyle Contrasted to His Childhood Best Friend and Geologist Employee, Mitch Wayne: Mitch had heard Kyle's charming proposals to women before about his hedonistic lifestyle: ("How would you like to join the Kyle Hadley Society for the Prevention of Boredom?...Pleasures, such as Kyle Hadley's guided tour through the gossip columns, Around the world in 80 headlines"), and exclaimed "Bravo" when principled Lucy clearly rejected Kyle's materialistic advances and consumptive offer to buy her Madison Avenue's Sheraton Agency. Kyle answered Lucy's query to Mitch about what he did for the Hadley Company with a smart reply - he called them both troubleshooters. Kyle was extremely envious of Mitch's stability, talent, education, and responsibility as the foreman within his own company - he was a down-to-earth geologist (who wasn't expelled from college) and was considered as his 'adopted' brother:
On their way out of the restaurant, Kyle waylaid Mitch on an errand to purchase cigarettes, as he dropped his "friend" and absconded with Lucy in a taxi to take her to the Teterborough Airport. She objected to being kidnapped: "I'd like to get off the merry-go-round." The very pushy Kyle promised her that he was really a different person than his first impression: "Once we get up in the blue, I'm a different fella, a lot different from this character." He was also straightforward about his alcoholism:
Knowing Kyle's well-worn routine to abscond with women, Mitch (although uninvited) was already seated onboard Kyle's private plane at the airport. Lucy joined pilot Kyle in the cockpit, where she was briefed on his past relationships within the Hadley business empire during the flight. Kyle's father Jasper had introduced him to Mitch when they were first-grade chums - and there was a striking contrast between the two boys:
According to Kyle, only Mitch could fulfill his magnate father's aspirations for a son. He honestly told Lucy about his own personal failings as the number one troublemaker and black sheep of the family - he had a reputation for being a misbehaving, ne'er-do-well playboy, and carried on the tradition of his uncle Joe Hadley who "lived hard and he died hard":
Believing that he couldn't live up to his father's aspirations, Kyle turned to drink and fast living. He mentioned that there were three "black sheep" in the Hadley family -- his uncle Joe, himself, and his kid sister Marylee:
Mitch appeared in the cockpit, realizing that they had veered off-course from a route toward Texas and were heading for Miami Beach, Florida. Kyle had privately planned to woo Lucy even further. With straight-talk candor, he was beginning to soften her up - and hinted at what he was expecting from her in return: ("We're past the point of no return") - she smiled in response.
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Written
on the Wind (1956) is generally regarded as the best of director
Douglas Sirk's 1950s lush, vibrantly colorful melodramatic masterpieces.
His absorbing, flamboyant, overwrought potboiler films were noted
for their glossy and excessive style, soap opera-ish and brightly-colored
film noirish characteristics, and exaggerated and overheated emotions.
This film provided Sirk's clear commentary and critique of the
underlying hollowness and shallowness of American society in the
placid 1950s, and misfit lives stunted and corrupted by mental
anguish, alcoholism, sexual frustration, and corruptible materialistic
wealth.