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Studio:Universal Pictures UK

Director:Douglas Sirk

Cast: Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorehead, Otto Kruger, Barbara Rush

Running Time:108 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review

Rock Hudson became a beefcake star playing a self-absorbed, thrill-chasing millionaire playboy in the first of Douglas Sirk's glossy Technicolor melodramas. In a classic example of the wicked machinations of soap opera fate, Hudson's showboating antics kill the most saintly man in motion-picture history and stalk his newlywed widow (Jane Wyman), driving her into an accident that leaves her blind. The kindly attentions of a bohemian painter and part-time guardian angel help turn Hudson's life around, and he rejects his irresponsible lifestyle and dedicates himself to his new "magnificent obsession" of philanthropy and good deeds, meanwhile romancing Wyman in a sincere, soft-spoken voice and with a phony name. Magnificent Obsession was a huge success and established a style Sirk would refine through the 1950s, reaching a baroque peak in Written on the Wind and culminating with what may be his most successful and most famous film, Imitation of Life. Compared to his later successes, this is arch and flat, lacking the ironic edge and luscious style of his best films, but it's an exceedingly handsome production in bold, bright colors where swooning romance and life-saving operations define life as an emotional roller coaster of mythic proportions. --Sean Axmaker

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