Loosely based on the 1932 death of Zachary Smith Reynolds, heir to the J.R. Reynolds tobacco fortune, supposedly by his wife, torch singer Libby Holman, director Douglas Sirk depicts the emptiness and decadence of an American ruling-class family, the Hadleys, oil barons mired deep in the darkest heart of Texas. In the sixth of his eight roles with Sirk, Rock Hudson serves as a moral compass, while the Hadley siblings, Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone (both Oscar nominated but Malone got the win), spiral downward into depravity. The master of subversive melodrama, Sirk paved the way for future insurgents such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder and David Lynch. As fellow traveler Pedro Almodovar once declared: “I have seen Written on the Wind a thousand times, and I cannot wait to see it again.” — Laura Emerick

Rated: NR