Country: US
Technical: col 99m
Director: Douglas Sirk
Cast: Robert Stack, Rock Hudson, Dorothy Malone, Lauren Bacall, Robert Keith
Synopsis:
A rich Texan oil family is riven by dipsomania, impotence and sexual jealousy.
Review:
Magnificently overblown, richly technicolored and surprisingly permissive distillation of what eventually became Dallas on TV, done here with far more style and gloss. The pace is hard, the melodrama high, and Dorothy Malone the hottest thing on two legs. The flashback structure underlines the Racinian tragedy of misdirected love at its heart, but the ravishing art direction and cinematography just as entertainingly echo the 1950s consumerism pitched to the point of vulgarity. Inevitably the weak and wicked characters (Malone and Stack) are much more fun than the wholesome good ones (Hudson and Bacall), and we are not fooled for one minute when Malone, having strutted through the film in a succession of provocative outfits, appears at the end in widow's weeds, distractedly fondling the model of an oil derrick: a bold stroke at any point, but as last but one shot of the movie?
Country: US
Technical: col 99m
Director: Douglas Sirk
Cast: Robert Stack, Rock Hudson, Dorothy Malone, Lauren Bacall, Robert Keith
Synopsis:
A rich Texan oil family is riven by dipsomania, impotence and sexual jealousy.
Review:
Magnificently overblown, richly technicolored and surprisingly permissive distillation of what eventually became Dallas on TV, done here with far more style and gloss. The pace is hard, the melodrama high, and Dorothy Malone the hottest thing on two legs. The flashback structure underlines the Racinian tragedy of misdirected love at its heart, but the ravishing art direction and cinematography just as entertainingly echo the 1950s consumerism pitched to the point of vulgarity. Inevitably the weak and wicked characters (Malone and Stack) are much more fun than the wholesome good ones (Hudson and Bacall), and we are not fooled for one minute when Malone, having strutted through the film in a succession of provocative outfits, appears at the end in widow's weeds, distractedly fondling the model of an oil derrick: a bold stroke at any point, but as last but one shot of the movie?
