TV and Movies

[Oznell]

10;00 p.m. Eastern:  "Written on the Wind"  Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall

TCM continues Summer under the Stars with a day of wistful beauty, Dorothy Malone.   Here she and Robert Stack are the spoiled, troubled heirs of a wealthy Texas oilman.  They're both on a wild, fast track for doom, and are set at counterpoint to the more stable and productive Rock Hudson and Lauren Bacall.  The quartet are mis-matched and criss-crossed...

Directed by clever Douglas Sirk, whose deliberately overwrought, florid style ("Magnificent Obsession", "Imitation of Life") perfectly suits the amplified soap opera of "Written on the Wind".  The candy-colored landscapes, sets, and costumes are to revel in!

Malone won a Best Supporting Oscar in this.  She was a fluid, under-used actress, equally effective as brunette or blonde, who first gained notice as the funny bookstore manager in "The Big Sleep".  To me she always seems endearingly slightly uneasy in bombshell roles.  She has a paradoxically "urchin" quality-- I'm always picturing her with a faintly lopsided smile...

They're also showing "The Fast and the Furious" with John Ireland today, and "The Tarnished Angels", also directed by Sirk and with Hudson and Stack.  At midnight Eastern, Dorothy Malone portrays John Barrymore's troubled daughter Diana, in "Too Much, Too Soon."

[Big Joanie]

Dear Oznell .. thanks again .. I saw this advertised the other day ...

Great cast .. but I will say .. the book was fabulous ....

[Judaline]

@Oznell  I don't know. Dorothy Malone always has a maneater look on her face to me. Something about her turns me off. Great looks, it's just that one look she gets at times. Loved her in the bookstore with the glasses and hair in a bun I think. Then she took off the specs and let her hair down and I didn't like her as well, lol. Call me crazy, but that's all I've got.

[Judaline]

I LOVE Robert Stack. I believe he was a drunk in this movie so I will pass. He had a beautiful wife IRL as I recall. They must have been SOME couple. He aged exactly as he always looked, only with grayish hair and one or two wrinkles. Wasn't he a blueblood?All this is flooding back to me. 

[mousiegirl]

@Oznell  One of my favorites.  I watched it earlier this year on a VSH tape which I recorded it on, along with other movies years ago.

[GingerPeach]

All I can say is that I'll probably be watching this and comparing it with the 14 seasons of the original Dallas tv series I've just finished watching.  

This photograph of Dorothy Malone reminds me very much of Frederick Leighton's "Flaming June."

[Group 5 minus 1]

I am a big fan of Robert Stack. Anyone remember him in "The Name of the Game"?

[deepwaterdotter]

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@Judaline wrote:

I LOVE Robert Stack. I believe he was a drunk in this movie so I will pass. He had a beautiful wife IRL as I recall. They must have been SOME couple. He aged exactly as he always looked, only with grayish hair and one or two wrinkles. Wasn't he a blueblood?All this is flooding back to me. 

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@Judaline wrote:

I LOVE Robert Stack. I believe he was a drunk in this movie so I will pass. He had a beautiful wife IRL as I recall. They must have been SOME couple. He aged exactly as he always looked, only with grayish hair and one or two wrinkles. Wasn't he a blueblood?All this is flooding back to me. 

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His father owned a prosperous advetising agency.

[kaydee50]

An OK movie.  I remember her mostly from the Peyton Place series in the '60s where she played Allison's mother, I believe the part Lana Turner played in the movie.

[spiderw]

As you usually do, you said it all about this movie and in your articulate way!!  \

I agree about Dorothy Malone and not being as known as other actresses of her time.  I like her and feel she deserved more attention in the movie world.  I love Lauren Bacall, enjoy her in the movies she and Bogie are in and also the comedies where she is very funny!  Robert Stack appealed to me when he played Elliot Ness in the TV series, the Untouchables and I always enjoy Hudson in the movies he was in with Doris Day.  

Written on the Wind is a winner, thanks for the heads up!