Written on the Wind
1956, NR, 93 min.
Directed by Douglas Sirk, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone.

“It was a piece of social criticism, of the rich and the spoiled and of the American family, really,” Sirk commented in retrospect about this movie. This wild love story among the pillars of a rich Texas oil family features a drunken, paranoid playboy (Stack, in maybe his very best performance), the woman who loves him (Bacall), the man who loves her (Hudson), and the half-sister (Malone) who loves him. This oil-family story is way, way east of Eden. Were I asked to choose, Written on the Wind would blow in as my favorite Sirk film.

This article appears in May 26 • 2000.

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Marjorie Baumgarten is a film critic and contributing writer at The Austin Chronicle, where she has worked in many capacities since the paper's founding in 1981. She served as the Chronicle's Film Reviews editor for 25 years.