Tomorrow at 2pm, The Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville will be screening Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind (1956). This is one of my all-time favorites films (certainly in my top 5) and one that first got me interested in studying film. It stars Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, and Dorothy Malone and is a tour de force of high 50s melodrama. If you like day or nighttime soaps or enjoy camp entertainment, then this is the film for you. It's got an impotent alcoholic, two friends in love with the same woman, guns under pillows, a crazed nymphomaniac (that phrase is going to bring lots of disappointed people to this site), and phallic symbols galore. All that is presented in lush technicolor which (if it is a good print) will knock your socks off.
Beyond tomorrow, The Colonial is screening Douglas Sirk films on Sundays all through May. Written on the Wind is classic Sirk who, at the time, was considered to be only a standard studio director turning out lush adult melodramas that would never last. His work was revived in the 1970s by film theorists who began to see his films as careful critiques of 1950s American life. Most recently, Todd Haynes' Far From Heaven (2002) was a feature homage to Sirk following on his use of cinematography, color, plot, and themes.
Anyway, if you have time tomorrow, check it out.
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