What I got from my history of film class about the melodrama is that it is centered on drama within the family, and it is drama with "music" as a key element. I am not sure whether this music part is literal or figurative, because I've been told Breaking Bad is a melodrama yet is not that musical. I always thought melodrama just referred to exaggerated drama found in most soap operas.Getting back to this specific movie, "Written on the Wind" deals with a wealthy family and a close friend of that family, none of which I even care for. The family in question is the Hadley family, which contains a drunken impulsive baby of a man, his father who runs the family company, and his sister, the town slut. The most interesting moment of the film is when the Hadley slut is dancing in her room and in a seductive dress, which is connected to her father falling down the stairs to his death. He does not see the dance, but it is implied that her sexuality is what ultimately kills him. Other than this we have a complicated love triangle - actually, make that a quadrangle - which ends up getting the Hadley drunk killed, and if the late Hadley's sister decides to testify that Mitch was the one to kill her brother, nobody can refute it. In a somewhat satisfying ending, she cries as she cannot put Mitch away, and then what do you know, the movie ends. I can see the film's effort, but the style of melodrama bored me to death and seemed hyperbolic.

Would the Lauren Bacall character actually marry the Robert Stack character--on day one of their acquaintance? Of course not. Would the Rock Hudson character--year after year--put up with "best friend" Robert Stack's behavior? Is anyone that saintly? Of course not. Given the fact that certain females are "tramps," could any female be as trampy as the Dorothy Malone character? Of course not. Is anything about this movie believable or even interesting? Not much. In fact it's ugly from beginning to end and I'm sure the whole cast was embarrassed by having to play characters who couldn't possibly have existed. Lauren Bacall must have walked off the set every day, poured herself a stiff drink and said "I can't believe I'm doing this!" And if this was Robert Stack's "finest performance," that's unfortunate because he probably had some talent. The same year this was released, Rock Hudson did a beautiful acting job in Giant; in this one he just looks puzzled. What an ugly movie. I don't need to see this one again.

This is only my second encounter with this maker after my first introduction the other day. I admit I can't peg him. The filming is seamlessly polished in the form, spacious. It vibrates with a modern air in the way it frames and moves. It's replete with so very attractive images and spaces: the young oil magnate trying to swoon the love interest in Miami airport, Bacall in the Miami suite, the blonde bombshell sister in her fire-engine red convertible, the road lined with oil derricks, the mansion floor strewn with leaves blown in through an open door. It's the kind of Hollywood reverie that you think would hint at something covert about sex and dreaming, elusive; the kind of movie Niagara is. Seeing such competent molding applied on such generic stuff makes you think it's going to be perhaps intended akin to how Welles built on his own potboilers, as a springboard for introspection, the mystery of shedding narrative on the walls and floor. And yet it remains safe, trivial, about the glossy surface.Part of the reason why I sought out this maker is because now and then his name appears in discussions about Lynch having influenced this or that. Part of it of course is that I'm always attracted to seductive manipulation. So there must have been a very brief window in time when these were potent. I can see how Lynch must have seen here an appealing wallpaper for Blue Velvet; but more than that how the seamless image could conceal and tease with everything this man made obvious.A key example is this: strong-minded Bacall against our expectation falls for the cocky playboy instead of the quiet Hudson character, she has seen in private a softer side to nurture, a normal human being eager for love. It's such a strong setup, having us see past the fixed movie image into more fluid self. We know of course his darker side of drinking and loathing will resurface, the question is how, when, what mysterious pull in the soul draws a darker nature. (This is what Lynch has been burying deeper and deeper in his works, blurring cause and making the urge something inscrutable in the fabric).There's a marvelous scene that foreshadows things, this is where she finds a gun under his pillow one night. This fundamental ambiguity would have been the cornerstone in noir of the time and prior: what secrets lie behind having to sleep with a gun, did she make a mistake in linking her life with him, and did she merely find the gun or some mysterious pull conjure it there? Can it be her urge to be rid of him and keep his fortune? Here when that darker self appears they based it on the most ludicrous exaggeration: a doctor telling him he may not be able to have kids and he becomes a raving loony. How silly.

Once again, I must dissent. I think this film reeks.Roger Ebert described it as "a perverse and wickedly funny melodrama...in which shocking behavior is treated with passionate solemnity, while parody burbles beneath." I think he was being very generous.I've always found Robert Stack to be a second-rate actor and just a little creepy. Here he outdid himself -- I found him to be a third-rate actor and really creepy...especially when he was looking directly at Lauren Bacall. Made me shudder. He gets killed off in the movie...it didn't come a minute too soon.I usually find Rock Hudson to be a rather appealing actor, but I didn't find him or his part to be a bit appealing here...perhaps more later in the film. Lauren Bacall, not usually one of my favorites, did about the only really decent acting here, though I have seen her better in a few other films. Dorothy Malone never quite made it to the top ranks either, although in a number of films I found her quite appealing...but not here.And, I have found some films directed by Douglas Sirk to be right up my alley -- especially "Magnificent Obsession", "All That Heaven Allows", and "Imitation of Life" -- but not this one. It took me 3 nights to wade through this, and several times I almost turned it off completely. I should have...my time would have been better spent whittling...and I don't even whittle! It seems that almost everything in this film is overdone. Over-acting. Overly dramatic music. Too much of a bad thing. I recommend you skip it!