NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

nightlavender-92827 I have to disagree with the previous person's review. This movie is so good and moving and reflects the time it was made in. Jane Wyman does look older than Rock but I think its that horrible short bob of a hairstyle she wears but I realize it was her trademark look throughout her career even up until the TV show Falcon Crest. If you like sentimental movies you can really lose yourself in and really suspend your imagination , you'll love this. Also I couldn't help but notice the similarities in looks between Elvis and Rock, they could've been brothers! All in all, a very good movie.

James Hitchcock During the 1950s director Douglas Sirk was noted both for his accomplished use of colour and for the melodramatic nature of his plots in films like "Magnificent Obsession", "Written on the Wind", "All that Heaven Allows" and "Imitation of Life". "Magnificent Obsession" was a remake of a film from 1935, which I have never seen; both films are based upon a novel of the same name by Lloyd C. Douglas. The story is an essentially religious account of one man's redemption. The main character, Bob Merrick, starts off as a spoiled wealthy playboy, but eventually reforms, resumes his medical studies (which he abandoned when inherited his family fortune upon his father's death) and ends up as a brilliant surgeon, widely admired not only for his surgical skills but also for his kindness and philanthropy. A key figure in Merrick's redemption is Wayne Phillips, another brilliant surgeon, widely admired not only for his surgical skills but also for his kindness and philanthropy. In the 1935 film the doctor had the surname "Hudson", but this was changed to "Phillips" when Rock Hudson was cast as Merrick in this film, presumably because the studio felt that it would be confusing to have a character sharing a name with one of the film's stars. The more recent "Margot at the Wedding" is another example of the same phenomenon; it was originally to have been called "Nicole at the Wedding", but the name of the main character was changed when Nicole Kidman was cast in the role. Hudson seems to have been a favourite actor of Sirk, who used him in starring roles not only here but also in "Written on the Wind" and "All that Heaven Allows". Merrick never meets Dr Phillips, who does not actually appear in the film and who dies near the beginning, but both he and the audience hear a lot about the late doctor from his friends and family. According to them Dr. Phillips both preached and practised a philosophy of altruism, believing that to achieve anything worthwhile in life one needs to do good to others without hoping for anything in return, either in terms of financial reward or in terms of reputation. Hollywood may sometimes preach a gospel of altruism, but it has more difficulty practising it, and it has never been entirely comfortable with the doctrine that virtue is its own reward. Surely it must bring some more tangible rewards as well? Although, therefore, we never get to see Dr Phillips, we do get to see his house, and it turns out to be a magnificent lakeside villa, the sort of house I would more readily associate with the Bob Merricks of this world than with a self- sacrificing humanitarian who supposedly died relatively poor because of his generosity to others. An important factor in Merrick's transformation is the romance which develops between him and Phillips's widow Helen. I think that we are supposed to assume that Helen is considerably younger than Phillips, who had an adult daughter by a previous marriage, but nevertheless significantly older than Merrick. Rock Hudson was Hollywood's resident toyboy of the fifties and early sixties. At a time when "boy meets girl" usually meant "older man meets girl young enough to be his daughter", Hudson was regularly cast as the love-interest of actresses older than himself. Sometimes the age difference was only a minor one, as in his series of comedies with Doris Day, but sometimes it was more significant as with Jennifer Jones in "A Farewell to Arms" or with Jane Wyman here. (Hudson and Wyman were also cast together in "All that Heaven Allows"). Sirk's work is characterised by careful composition of his images and his accomplished use of colour. His backgrounds are generally muted and dominated by greys and browns, but there is generally a prominent, brightly-coloured object in the foreground. In "Written on the Wind" this object is normally red, yellow or green, which gives a certain stylistic unity to that film, but here he uses colour more indiscriminately, with blues and purples also much to the fore. Despite Sirk's skill as a director, "Magnificent Obsession" is not a favourite of mine. The plot is excessively melodramatic and sentimental, too heavily reliant on coincidence and at times too improbable to be credible. The worst development comes when Merrick woos Helen, who has been blinded in an accident, under a false name without her (at first) realising his true identity and without any of her friends betraying his secret. Even more improbably she falls in love with a man whom she previously disliked, even though he was partly to blame for her accident. Special mention should be made of Frank Skinner's dreadful musical score, all lushly swooping strings and quasi-angelic choirs chanting "Ah-ah-ah", which intensifies the general atmosphere of corny sentimentality. In some of his films, such as "Written on the Wind" or "Imitation of Life", Sirk showed that he was capable of transforming melodrama into art. But not here. 5/10

mark.waltz Because now we've got Technicolor, Widescreen, Ross Hunter, Douglas Sirk, and more importantly, Rock Hudson. He takes on the practically impossible task of playing this sinner-to-saint transformation, and almost makes it work, if not totally. Jane Wyman lacks the youthful effervescence of Irene Dunne from the original, but gives a beautifully restrained performance nonetheless. Otto Kruger expands on Ralph Morgan's role of the artist (here a painter instead of a sculptor) who expresses the film's moral.This being a soap opera like premise, it is more than appropriate that the film focuses on two "Guiding Light's", Kruger and the compassionate nurse, played her by Agnes Moorehead who fortunately gets to be somewhat tough in her duties, yet kindly compassionate under that Endora red hair of hers. Barbara Rush adds some more layers to the sweetness of her stepdaughter character.Hudson and Wyman at first seem an odd couple to be paired with in a spiritual secret storm mean to give the matinée ladies a good cry away from the daily viewings of "Love of Life" and "Search For Tomorrow", and the film rises above the stories clichés. Made on the success of another film version of a Lloyd C. Douglas novel ("The Robe"), this takes the life lesson of being kind and helpful to strangers without expecting anything back in return to a modern level. It utilizes beautiful locations and a lush musical score to flesh out its already melodramatic tale. In an era of exotic beauties like Monroe, Taylor, Loren and Lollobrigida (or down home girls like Doris Day), Wyman's box-office success with this is a nice reflection on the 1950's environment where a box in a living room was sometimes keeping people from going to the movies, except, like in the case of this movie, when they really had something worth going to.

bobsgrock Douglas Sirk is often praised some 50 years after his career ended for being one of the most subversive and bittersweet of Hollywood directors of the 1950s. Born in Germany, he began his film career in the German cinema, only to flee when the Nazis took control. By the mid 1940s, he was a full-fledged Hollywood director assigned by studios to churn out as many films as possible. However, even after all these years, it is clear that like fellow immigrant directors Billy Wilder and Ernst Lubitsch, there was a dark undertone in all of Sirk's works that continues to amaze today.The first of Sirk's most well-known films was Magnificent Obsession, a glossy Technicolor melodrama that on the surface appears to be as soapy and exploitative as any daytime television drama. However, many critics and scholars in recent years have instructed us to look closer, to try and understand the hidden meanings and undertones of such a story. Clearly, it is obvious that Sirk used such a decor and platform as that was what he was given to work with. Melodramas were becoming quite popular in the 1950s, this itself being a reflection of the growing artifice and superficial decadence that would come to characterize postwar America. Sirk, being a European immigrant, would know and recognize this better than almost anyone. Therefore, he brilliantly used American settings, characterizations and story lines to subject to American audiences the very ideas and social graces he saw through. Just as expected, people fell for the bait and came in droves to witness what they though was simply a tearjerker exploring the relationship between a spoiled rich playboy and a well-meaning widow of a revered doctor.Though it may be impossible to truly grasp all of Sirk's secrets after just one viewing, it seems to me that one of the critiques most notable here is the motivation these characters possess. Another reviewer described this film as a quest for spirituality. Redemption and understanding may also be added to this list as nearly all of these characters attempt to find consolation and faith in things that reflect their own artificial emotion and feelings. Do any of these characters truly have a moral center that guides their everyday actions? Or are they simply living out of guilt, fear, jealousy and self-loathing? These are loaded questions to be sure, but the more I write the more I am convinced that Magnificent Obsession is a loaded film.