{"id":157031,"date":"2015-12-10T10:06:17","date_gmt":"2015-12-10T17:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shockya.com\/news\/?p=157031"},"modified":"2016-08-04T10:44:10","modified_gmt":"2016-08-04T17:44:10","slug":"spend-the-holidays-with-the-films-of-douglas-sirk-at-the-film-society-at-lincoln-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shockya.com\/news\/2015\/12\/10\/spend-the-holidays-with-the-films-of-douglas-sirk-at-the-film-society-at-lincoln-center\/","title":{"rendered":"Spend the Holidays with the Films of Douglas Sirk at the Film Society at Lincoln Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s a whole lot of Douglas Sirk coming to New York during the holiday season. From December 23 \u2013 January 6, it’s “Imitations of Life: The Films of Douglas Sirk.” Check out the Film Society at Lincoln Center’s website for more info<\/a> and the awesome lineup below: <\/p>\n

All I Desire<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1953, 35mm, 79m<\/strong>
\nSirk excoriates small-town pettiness and provincialism in this slashing, incisive melodrama. A marvelous Barbara Stanwyck stars as washed-up vaudeville actress Naomi Murdoch, who travels back to the Wisconsin town where the husband and three children she abandoned 10 years earlier still reside. Her sudden reappearance sends shock waves through the community and pits her against her oh-so-scandalized eldest daughter. At every turn, Sirk undercuts the outraged moralizing of the townsfolk, abetted mightily by Stanwyck\u2019s defiant performance. As the world-wise Naomi, she conveys a toughness of spirit that can\u2019t be crushed.
\nThursday, December 31, 2:30pm & 6:30pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

All That Heaven Allows<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1955, 35mm, 89m<\/strong>
\nBoth a heartbreaking melodrama and a sharp indictment of hypocrisy in 1950s America, this epitome of layered Hollywood filmmaking follows the blossoming love between an upper-middle-class suburban widow (Jane Wyman) and her handsome, considerably younger gardener (Rock Hudson). Their romance, greeted with scorn by her selfish children and outright disgust by her snooty friends, reveals the class-based prejudices of small-town life. Sirk and renowned cinematographer Russell Metty bring a richly ambiguous emotional tenor to each shot with calibrated colors and meticulous compositions that suggest the confinement of Cary\u2019s life and the impossibility of escaping it. In its aesthetic and narrative richness, All That Heaven Allows has proven an endlessly durable model for artists of any medium who wish to address the manifold taboos of bourgeois society.
\nThursday, December 24, 4:30pm<\/strong>
\n Friday, December 25, 9:00pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Battle Hymn<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1957, 35mm, 108m<\/strong>
\nA complex moral ambiguity elevates this underrated war drama. Rock Hudson stars as a preacher who, though haunted by the killing he did as a bomber pilot during World War II, reenlists in the Korean War, where his humanitarian ambitions bump up against the harsh realities of army life. While Sirk handles the spectacular scenes of aerial combat with aplomb, his primary concern is with the troubling ethical considerations of warfare, a theme he expresses through some of his most precise, hard-edged visual compositions. As an investigation of wartime guilt, Battle Hymn makes a fascinating companion to A Time to Love and a Time to Die.
\nThursday, December 24, 8:30pm<\/strong>
\n Saturday, December 26, 2:00pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Captain Lightfoot<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1955, 35mm, 92m<\/strong>
\nSirk makes the most of the CinemaScope frame in this handsomely mounted adventure yarn set in the 19th century. Rock Hudson stars as the eponymous Irish revolutionary, who goes from holding up stagecoaches to teaming with the rebel leader in the fight for freedom from Britain. Aided by Hudson\u2019s engaging performance, Sirk keeps the proceedings light and lively, moving zippily from one action setpiece to the next and topping things off with a daring prison escape. Shot in Technicolor on location in Ireland, the film looks simply spectacular, with Sirk capturing breathtaking views of the Emerald Isle\u2019s castles and coastline.
\nFriday, December 25, 4:30pm<\/strong>
\n Sunday, December 27, 7:00pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

The First Legion<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1951, 35mm, 86m<\/strong>
\nOne of Sirk\u2019s first masterpieces is also one of his most sincere, deeply felt works. Charles Boyer stars among a motley crew of character actors (including William Demarest and Leo G. Carroll) as a trial lawyer turned priest living in a Jesuit monastery. When he witnesses what may be a miracle, it precipitates a crisis of doubt as he tries to come to terms with what he saw. A subtle, absorbing meditation on faith vs. reason, The First Legion finds Sirk adopting an appropriately stripped-down, ascetic visual style (though he makes the most of the monastery\u2019s mazelike interior). The transcendent climax is as moving a moment of grace as has ever been put on film, giving lie to the notion of Sirk as a strictly ironic filmmaker.
\nMonday, January 4, 7:00pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Girl from the Marsh Croft \/ Das M\u00e4dchen vom Moorhof<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, Germany, 1935, 35mm, 82m<\/strong>
\n German with English subtitles<\/strong>
\nIn his second feature film, Sirk (then still known as Detlef Sierck) crafts a luminous pastoral melodrama from a story by Nobel Prize\u2013winning Swedish writer Selma Lagerl\u00f6f. It follows the fortunes of a young, unwed mother (Hansi Knoteck) taken in as a maid by a kindly farmer (Kurt Fischer-Fehling), only to be shunned by his small-minded fianc\u00e9e. One of Sirk\u2019s first explorations of small-town prejudice\u2014a recurring concern throughout his work\u2014glows with romantic, bucolic imagery and a sincere empathy for its outcast heroine. The result is one of the director\u2019s most sensitive, lyrical films.
\nWednesday, January 6, 7:00pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

La Habanera<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, Germany, 1937, 16mm, 98m<\/strong>
\n German with English subtitles<\/strong>
\nExoticism, bacteriology, and musical numbers all collide in this lush, offbeat melodrama. Zarah Leander stars as a Swedish woman who leaves her native country behind for the romantic lure of Puerto Rico (with the Canary Islands filling in for the Caribbean). After 10 years of marriage to a cruel, controlling nobleman, the island paradise has become a personal hell\u2014while the threat of a deadly tropical fever hangs in the air. Sirk downplays the story\u2019s nationalistic message (then de rigueur in the Nazi-controlled film industry he would soon flee) to create a poetic human tragedy set amid a sumptuous world of glittering light and shadow.
\nSunday, January 3, 4:00pm<\/strong>
\n Venue: Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hitler\u2019s Madman<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1943, 16mm, 84m<\/strong>
\nIn Sirk\u2019s first American film, John Carradine gives a frighteningly effective performance as real-life Nazi sadist Reinhard Heydrich, the so-called \u201cButcher of Prague,\u201d whose assassination led the Third Reich to unleash horrifying retribution upon Czechoslovakia (an incident that was also the basis for Fritz Lang\u2019s 1943 film Hangmen Also Die!). Sirk\u2019s powerfully expressionistic style (with deep shadows courtesy of legendary German cinematographer Eugen Sch\u00fcfftan, who worked uncredited) more than overcomes the Poverty Row budget. It turns this ode to Czech resistance into a shattering elegy for the victims of fascism. Look out for a 19-year-old Ava Gardner among a lineup of women whom Heydrich interrogates.
\nSunday, January 3, 2:00pm & 6:00pm<\/strong>
\n Venue: Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street<\/strong><\/p>\n

Imitation of Life<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1959, 35mm, 125m<\/strong>
\nSirk\u2019s final Hollywood film\u2014and perhaps his crowning achievement\u2014is one of the all-time great weepies and a damning critique of racial and class division in America. It\u2019s the dual story of Lora Meredith (Lana Turner), an aspiring actress, and Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore), the African-American single mother she hires as her live-in maid. As Lora\u2019s career ascends, Annie is pushed aside by her light-skinned daughter, Sarah Jane (Susan Kohner), who chooses to pass as white. Throughout, Sirk brilliantly manipulates the story\u2019s artifice, emphasizing the obliviousness of the white characters to their privilege and imbuing the Annie\u2013Sarah Jane relationship with a wrenching pathos. It all crescendos with a soul-shaking performance from Mahalia Jackson and the gale-force emotional annihilation of Sirk\u2019s most devastating climax.
\nSaturday, December 26, 6:30pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Interlude<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1957, 35mm, 90m<\/strong>
\nUnjustly overlooked among Sirk\u2019s celebrated 1950s melodramas, Interlude is one of the most searing expressions of the director\u2019s fatalistic worldview. The loss-of-innocence narrative follows an American government worker (June Allyson) in Munich whose sunny optimism is put through the wringer by a tumultuous affair with a temperamental orchestra conductor (Rossano Brazzi) who is concealing a secret. Shooting in Germany for the first time since World War II, Sirk captures postcard-perfect views of his home country, while exposing the dark undercurrents beneath the glossy exterior. The result is a shattering work about the impossibility of lasting happiness, which, as Sirk once said, \u201cexists, if only by virtue of the fact that it can be destroyed.\u201d
\nSunday, December 27, 5:00pm & 9:00pm<\/p>\n

Magnificent Obsession<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1954, 35mm, 108m<\/strong>
\nEverything came together\u2014the advent of widescreen filmmaking, a star-making performance from Rock Hudson, and a story so far-fetched it was practically begging for Sirk\u2019s Brechtian approach\u2014in the first of the director\u2019s extraordinary Technicolor melodramas. Hudson is a devil-may-care playboy who inadvertently widows and then blinds the local doctor\u2019s wife (Jane Wyman), before giving up his reckless ways to become a surgeon in hopes that he might cure her. Through his command of color, composition, and mise-en-sc\u00e8ne, Sirk transforms this most outr\u00e9 of premises into a luminous, metaphysical exploration of fate and spirituality.
\nThursday, December 24, 2:00pm<\/strong>
\n Friday, December 25, 6:30pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Meet Me at the Fair<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1953, 35mm, 87m<\/strong>
\nThis tuneful, rosily nostalgic slice of Americana is greatly enhanced by Sirk\u2019s sophisticated sensibility. Set at the turn of the century, it follows a runaway orphan boy who joins up with a traveling medicine-show huckster (ebullient song-and-dance man Dan Dailey) and his sidekick, played by the legendary Scatman Crothers (in his feature-film debut). Though Sirk more than delivers on the requisite charm, he also, as usual, emphasizes the story\u2019s strong social critique: politicians are revealed to be corrupt charlatans, while it\u2019s the professional con man who displays true character.
\nMonday, January 4, 5:00pm & 9:00pm<\/p>\n

Mystery Submarine<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1950, 35mm, 78m<\/strong>
\nThe first film Sirk directed upon signing his multi-year contract with Universal was this post-WWII-set nautical thriller, starring Macdonald Carey as a U.S. Naval Intelligence officer who goes undercover to rescue a scientist kidnapped by a villainous Nazi commander (and thereby thwart a plot by the remnants of the Third Reich to steal atomic secrets) and sink a German submarine hidden off the coast of Mexico. A taut and suspenseful entertainment, Mystery Submarine finds Sirk playing with genre tropes and again confronting the global threat posed by Nazism, even after Germany\u2019s WWII defeat.
\nWednesday, December 30, 4:30pm & 8:45pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pillars of Society \/ St\u00fctzen der Gesellschaft<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, Germany, 1935, 35mm, 85m<\/strong>
\n German with English subtitles<\/strong>
\nSirk\u2019s indictment of bourgeois hypocrisy receives one of its earliest treatments in this gripping adaptation of an Ibsen play. When a Norwegian rancher (Albrecht Schoenhals) living in America returns to his home country after 20 years away, his presence rattles skeletons in the family closet, exposing the moral duplicity and crooked dealings of his fat-cat industrialist brother-in-law (Heinrich George). Sirk guides this stinging condemnation of societal repression (which seems to have eluded Nazi censors) with a cool sense of dramatic irony, until the unresolved tension explodes in a raging climactic tempest at sea.
\nWednesday, January 6, 9:00pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Scandal in Paris<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1946, DCP, 100m<\/strong>
\nGeorge Sanders is perfectly cast as real-life 18th-century rake Eug\u00e8ne Fran\u00e7ois Vidocq in this witty, sophisticated crime caper. Born in a French jail cell, Vidocq goes from stealing horses to women\u2019s garters to jewels\u2014before famously reforming to become a renowned criminologist. Sirk (aided by fellow German expatriates like cinematographer Eugen Sch\u00fcfftan and composer Hanns Eisler) brings a distinctly Continental style to this Lubitschian comedy of manners, while Sanders gets the opportunity to deliver some of his most deliciously barbed bon mots this side of All About Eve\u2019s Addison DeWitt. The director himself considered A Scandal in Paris a personal favorite among his films.
\nWednesday, December 30, 2:15pm & 6:30pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shockproof<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1949, 35mm, 79m<\/strong>
\nThe tough-minded terseness of co-writer Samuel Fuller meets Sirk\u2019s elaborately stylized mise-en-sc\u00e8ne in this breathless, couple-on-the-run noir. The pulpy premise follows good-guy parole officer Cornel Wilde as he goes bad for sultry ex-con Patricia Knight (a Rita Hayworth lookalike and Wilde\u2019s real-life wife). After she shoots a guy, the pair hit the road, descending into ever-more-desperate criminality. With its field of endlessly pumping derricks, the oil-rig finale looks forward to the suggestive symbolism of Written on the Wind. Also of interest: a still from the film\u2014Knight framed in a maze of geometric shadows and mid-century modern design\u2014inspired a series of paintings by Pop Art pioneer Richard Hamilton.
\nFriday, January 1, 4:30pm & 8:30pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sign of the Pagan<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1954, 35mm, 92m<\/strong>
\nSirk\u2019s fatalistic vision drives this fascinatingly dark, doom-laden sword-and-sandal saga. Jack Palance delivers a commanding performance as Attila the Hun, who sets out to topple the Roman Empire\u2014but is haunted at every turn by ominous signs and prophecies (with the Christian cross acting as a particularly potent harbinger of death). Sirk\u2019s Attila is part of a long line of rebellious, unpredictable central characters (company that includes Dorothy Malone\u2019s nymphomaniac in Written on the Wind and Imitation of Life\u2019s Sarah Jane), whose volatile presence has the power to destabilize everything around them. Print courtesy of Academy Film Archive.
\nSaturday, January 2, 3:00pm & 7:00pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sleep, My Love<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1948, 35mm, 97m<\/strong>
\nThis stylish noir (produced by Mary Pickford) opens strikingly as Claudette Colbert awakes in fright and freaks out aboard a moving train she can\u2019t remember boarding. What unfolds is a taut, Gaslight-style thriller, as the Manhattan-dwelling Colbert\u2019s two-timing husband (Don Ameche) systematically shatters her sanity. Throughout, Sirk showcases his flair for baroque compositions, making the most of mirrors, staircases, and shadows to create a sinister atmosphere of disorientation. The colorful supporting cast includes George Coulouris as a nightmare-inducing psychiatrist and a wonderfully vampy Hazel Brooks as a hard-boiled femme fatale. 35mm preservation print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
\nSunday, December 27, 2:45pm<\/strong>
\n Monday, December 28, 6:30pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Slightly French<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1949, 35mm, 81m<\/strong>
\nSirk brings a pleasing glossiness to this sharp-witted satire of the familiar \u201cstar is born\u201d story. Don Ameche is a Hollywood director whose career is on the rocks and whose dream project\u2014a lavish musical called Ten Days in Paris\u2014is about to be shelved unless he can come up with a singing, dancing, French female lead. Unable to find the real thing, he does a Pygmalion job on a coarse carnival showgirl (Dorothy Lamour, having a blast with the role), transforming her into a tr\u00e8s chic Gallic starlet. Deliciously irreverent and full of sardonic one-liners, this unsung gem is an all-too-rare showcase for Sirk\u2019s flair for intelligent comedy.
\nFriday, January 1, 2:30pm & 6:30pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Summer Storm<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1944, 35mm, 106m<\/strong>
\nSirk\u2019s follow-up to Hitler\u2019s Madman (and his second feature made in the U.S.) adapts Anton Chekhov\u2019s novel The Shooting Party (with a script by Rowland Leigh), in which a cunning but illiterate peasant woman (Linda Darnell in a seductive, manipulative role that would redefine her virtuous starlet persona) pulls cynical imperial magistrate Fedor Petroff (George Sanders) away from his fianc\u00e9e, with dire results. Produced by fellow German exile Seymour Nebenzal (who also produced Fritz Lang\u2019s M and Joseph Losey\u2019s remake 20 years later), this despairing social drama finds Sirk\u2019s efficient storytelling and delicate, nuanced direction of actors on full display, presaging the wrought melodramas to come.
\nTuesday, January 5, 4:00pm & 8:30pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Take Me to Town<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1953, 35mm, 81m<\/strong>
\nCharming, American-as-apple-pie Old West comedy? Or barbed critique of religious hypocrisy? Sirk delivers both (plus songs) in this delightfully offbeat Technicolor confection. Ann Sheridan stars as Vermilion O\u2019Toole, a brassy saloon singer on the lam who hides out in a small town where she becomes a surrogate mother to the three towheaded sons of the local preacher (tough-guy Sterling Hayden in an uncharacteristically wholesome role, though he still handily wastes a guy in a brawl before delivering a sermon). As the brash Vermillion\u2019s presence elicits much hand-wringing from the congregation, Sirk exposes the sham piety of the moral majority. Take Me to Town was the first film produced by Ross Hunter, who would go on to collaborate with Sirk on several of his celebrated \u201950s melodramas.
\nThursday, December 31, 4:30pm & 8:30pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Tarnished Angels<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1957, 35mm, 91m<\/strong>
\nA newspaper reporter (Rock Hudson) addicted to booze tails a pair of vagabond stunt flyers (Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone) addicted to cheating death. The love triangle that ensues plays out against the sordid backdrop of Depression-era New Orleans during Mardi Gras, depicted by Sirk as a modern-day Sodom where death seems to haunt every corner. While the director\u2019s use of Technicolor is justly lauded, The Tarnished Angels finds Sirk harnessing the full expressive potential of black and white, with each frame etched in dramatic chiaroscuro. It also features one of Hudson\u2019s best performances; as the tormented journalist drawn into his subjects\u2019 doomy lives, he conveys a tightly wound intensity that explodes when he drinks.
\nWednesday, December 23, 7:00pm<\/strong>
\n Saturday, December 26, 4:30pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Taza, Son of Cochise<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1954, 35mm, 79m<\/strong>
\nThe director\u2019s one and only classical Western (shot in 3-D, but originally released in 2-D) stars Rock Hudson as the titular Apache chief, whose pleas for peace between his tribe and the white settlers are thwarted by his warmongering brother. Resplendent in Technicolor, the films is a showcase for Sirk\u2019s masterful action scene choreography and striking widescreen compositions. In its sympathetic portrayal of Native Americans, it\u2019s also surprisingly progressive (for 1954), with the climactic Apaches vs. U.S. Cavalry standoff resolved via a quintessential bit of Sirkian subversion.
\nSaturday, January 2, 5:00pm & 9:00pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s Always Tomorrow<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1956, 35mm, 84m<\/strong>
\nSirk delivers a devastating takedown of 1950s family values in this caustic domestic nightmare disguised as a romantic melodrama. Fred MacMurray stars as a browbeaten L.A. toy manufacturer whose insufferable children and ineffectual wife (lent nice depth by Joan Bennett) drive him into the arms of a fashion-designer old flame (Barbara Stanwyck). Sirk\u2019s visual coup is the indelible image of a wind-up toy robot (a not-so-subtle metaphor for MacMurray) marching obediently toward oblivion. Ultimately, the film makes the jaw-dropping case that infidelity can be a justifiable escape from the suffocating boredom of domesticity\u2014but that it, too, may only offer the illusion of happiness.
\nMonday, December 28, 4:30pm & 8:45pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thunder on the Hill<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1951, 35mm, 84m<\/strong>
\nA heartfelt and suspenseful mystery, Sirk\u2019s third film for Universal stars Claudette Colbert as Sister Mary Bonaventure, a nun in charge of a convent\u2019s hospital ward in Norfolk, England, whose fate becomes intertwined with that of a convicted killer, Valerie Carns (Ann Blyth), when a flood strands the latter and her guards at the convent en route to her execution. As previously withheld pieces of evidence slowly emerge, Sister Mary finds herself doubting Valerie\u2019s guilt, but her search for the truth could have fatal consequences\u2026 Despite his reputation as one of cinema\u2019s greatest ironists, Sirk\u2019s sincere fascination with the plot\u2019s mixture of melodrama and mystery is evident throughout.
\nTuesday, January 5, 2:00pm & 6:30pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Time to Love and a Time to Die<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1958, 35mm, 132m<\/strong>
\n\u201cI am going to write a madly enthusiastic review of Douglas Sirk\u2019s latest film, simply because it set my cheeks afire,\u201d raved Jean-Luc Godard after viewing this haunting, existential World War II\u2013set romance. Based on a novel by Erich Maria Remarque (who appears in the film), it follows a German soldier (John Gavin) on furlough who finds fleeting love amid the rubble-strewn remains of his hometown\u2014while coming to terms with the Nazi atrocities he is supposed to be fighting for. One of Sirk\u2019s major themes\u2014the struggle for happiness in the face of overwhelming odds\u2014finds powerful expression in this elegiac masterpiece. Look for a young Klaus Kinski as a creepy Nazi officer.
\nWednesday, December 23, 4:15pm & 9:00pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

To New Shores \/ Zu neuen Ufern<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, Germany, 1937, 35mm, 104m<\/strong>
\n German with English subtitles<\/strong>
\nThis ravishing melodrama finds Sirk already in full command of his powers as a master visual stylist. Swedish superstar Zarah Leander makes her debut film for UFA, the state-controlled studio where she would go on to become the most famous (and ultimately controversial) actress of the Nazi era. She plays a London music-hall singer who is sent to an Australian prison after she takes the rap for a check forged by her aristocratic lover. It\u2019s all rendered sublime through Sirk\u2019s dazzling use of lighting, trademark mirror shots, and Brechtian songs, which harken back to his roots in the German avant-garde theater.
\nSunday, January 3, 8:30pm*<\/strong>
\n Wednesday, January 6, 4:30pm<\/strong>
\n *Venue: Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street<\/strong><\/p>\n

Written on the Wind<\/strong>
\n Douglas Sirk, USA, 1956, 35mm, 99m<\/strong>
\nArguably Sirk\u2019s most jaw-droppingly subversive film follows the spoiled scions (Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone) of a Texas oil family whose monstrous delinquency\u2014he\u2019s an alcoholic, she\u2019s sleeping with half the town\u2014engulfs two relatively normal outsiders (Rock Hudson and Lauren Bacall) in a depraved domestic horror show. Never has Technicolor looked so lurid, as unchecked neuroses pile up, phallic symbols abound (those oil derricks!), and Malone (in an Oscar-winning performance) does a (literally) killer rumba. As audacious formally as it is thematically, Written on the Wind finds Sirk pushing his byzantine visual style so deliriously over the top that it\u2019s almost avant-garde.
\nThursday, December 24, 6:30pm<\/strong>
\n Friday, December 25, 2:00pm<\/strong>
\n Saturday, December 26, 9:00pm<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n