This kind of story doesn't really appeal to me but Sirk's mastery of film form is more than evident here. His employment of color, mise-en-scene, and placement of the camera make an indelible impression, even in the midst of occasionally laughable dialogue and Stack's strange and wooden performance.

Everything about Written on the Wind is big. Big actors (Rock Hudson and Lauren Bacall), big characters, big plot, big setting (Texas), big color palette (what better than Technicolor?)...it's such overblown melodrama that in the hands of most it would seem ridiculous, but Sirk makes it work, not so much subverting the material as bashing you over the head with the absurdity of it all. And yet it remains compelling and exciting throughout. The photography is astonishingly beautiful.

This is my first Sirk film, and I rather like it. It does move a bit too far into melodrama for my tastes, but the story is compelling and the actors very, very likable. There's a certain horrifying, believable tailspin that I just found myself so engrossed in that I could not look away. The acting itself is not especially good (save Malone's Oscar-winning performance), but I like the film-making, and it's an interesting story. Plus, for once, there's a character named Mitch who's the good guy.

An outrageous and stylish motion picture. Dorothy Malone's sexiest and most perverse performance.

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Perhaps Sirk's most frankly sexual film, bringing it to the forefront of the narrative through an impotent husband and his nymphomaniac sister. These are boldly drawn characters, and Sirk is unabashed in depicting their nasty and destructive nature. I'm sure this got quite a reaction back in '56. He commands the film with stylish mise-en-scene, showing with lush colors and flamboyant artifice what he cannot say directly.

Robert Stack is really really creepy!

Boring, lacking his grace.

what a gorgeous looking movie, easy to get lost in. i think dorothy malone gives the best performance. i dont know much about melodrama but it doesn't seem so bad.

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Sirk at his most sweeping and entertaining simultaneously, gorgeous stuff...

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Classic Douglas Sirk: A magical blend of the ridiculously unrealistic and the deeply genuine. Superbly directed and acted in perfect accordance with "soap opera" acting requirements.

Only Douglas Sirk could pull off such melodramatic, cliched plot and turn it into an elevated, inspired and stylish film.

Sirk elevates melodrama to something exciting, with a dazzling sense of style and ability to draw you in. The use of mirrors and reflections is also stunning. Not as compelling as All That Heaven Allows; it doesn't have the same subversive quality, but it's still good. Any scene with Malone sizzles and pops off the screen, and there isn't a bad or pointless scene in the whole movie. Sirk pushes the limits of the Hayes code, but does it with skill & elegance. Emotionally riveting and satisfyin

A good melodrama well directed and well acted, but the story is a little thin and the ending is a little weak. Overall a good movie that never quite makes it to greatness.

Hudson, Stack, and Bacall give a TKO performance, alas, the storyline is pure fluff that you wouldn't dare stuff your pillows with. Derivative in many senses of the word, the film has an engaging first act before it veers off the road in favour for lacklustre character relations and a sentimental overbite that screams of lazy writing.

Sarcasm and art are not the same thing.

More groovy soap from Douglas Sirk. The man singlehandedly makes it cool to watch this sort of stuff, even if you're a guy and completely straight :-)

Except for a couple of corny mental monologues, this is a perfect Hollywood melodrama.

I had to see it for film class. It was ok, but I saw better ones. Sometimes awfully overdramatic.

One of the more astounding of Sirk's technical feats, and you just cannot go wrong with this cast. Loved every second of it until a slightly unconvincing end.

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