Written On The Wind

Directed by Douglas Sirk, Written On The Wind follows Rock Hudson’s Mitch Wayne as he’s forced to stand by and watch as his childhood crush (Lauren Bacall’s Lucy Moore Hadley) is successfully wooed by a millionaire playboy (Robert Stack’s Kyle Hadley) – with the movie detailing the romantic entanglements that subsequently ensue. (There’s also, for example, an ongoing emphasis on Kyle’s devil-may-care sister and her longtime desire to be with Hudson’s protagonist.) It’s almost prototypical Sirk fodder that is, at the outset, employed to distressingly uninvolving effect, as the filmmaker, working from George Zuckerman’s screenplay, delivers a meandering, oddly shapeless drama devoid of elements designed to capture the viewer’s attention and interest. It’s equally clear, however, that Written On The Wind improves substantially somewhere around the half hour mark, as the relationships and drama between the four central characters snap into place and the movie’s undercurrent of unabashed melodrama becomes more and more prominent. The stirring atmosphere is heightened by the actors’ uniformly strong work and by, of course, Sirk’s lush, eye-popping visuals, and there’s little doubt, as well, that the picture benefits substantially from a genuinely exciting and engaging climax – although Sirk can’t quite stick the landing, unfortunately (ie the brief courtroom sequence that closes the proceedings feels somewhat superfluous). The end result is an erratic yet mostly rewarding effort from an impressively consistent filmmaker, as Written On The Wind ultimately fares just as well (if not better) than the director’s other, thematically-similar endeavors.

*** out of ****