Written on the Wind (1956)
- Directed by
- Douglas Sirk
- Genre
- drama film
- Country
- United States
- Runtime
- 1h 39m
- Rated
- NR
- Rating
- 7.0 of 10 from 271 voters
- Elsewhere
- IMDb
The catalogue in 3D
The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.
How it feels
A Texas oil dynasty family falls apart. The alcoholic heir, his wife, his best friend, and his destructive sister all get tangled in love and jealousy.
melodramaticintenseglossyemotionally chargedsoapytensevisually stylizedbleak
What happens
Written on the Wind is a 1956 American Southern Gothic melodrama film directed by Douglas Sirk and starring Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, and Dorothy Malone. It follows the complicated relationships among dysfunctional family members of a Texas oil dynasty: its alcoholic heir, his wife (a former secretary for the family company), his childhood best friend, and his ruthless, self-destructive sister. The screenplay by George Zuckerman was based on Robert Wilder's 1946 novel of the same title, a thinly disguised account (or roman à clef) of the real-life scandal involving torch singer Libby Holman and her husband, tobacco heir Zachary Smith Reynolds, who was killed under mysterious circumstances at his family estate in 1932. A film version of the novel was optioned by RKO Pictures and International Pictures in 1946, but the project was shelved because of threats from the Reynolds family. Universal Pictures acquired the rights to the novel after absorbing International Pictures, and began developing the film in 1955. Zuckerman made numerous alterations in his screenplay to avoid lawsuits from the Reynolds family, among them shifting the setting from North Carolina to Texas, and having the family fortune originate in oil rather than tobacco. Filmed in Los Angeles in late 1955 and early 1956, Written on the Wind was released theatrically in England in the fall of 1956 before opening in the United States on Christmas Day 1956. The film broke opening-day box office records for Universal, and was a financial success. Malone won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, Stack was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, and Victor Young and Sammy Cahn were nominated for Best Original Song. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)
More like this
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The Searchers (1956)
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Edge of Hell (1956)
Strange Intruder (1956)- More like this film, on a shelf you can walk up to.It's the lit case on the top shelf.