Magnificent Obsession (1954)

Douglas Sirk first teamed Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman in this widely successful melodrama based on the book by Lloyd C. Douglas. Playboy and medical school drop-out Hudson inadvertently contributes to the death of Wyman’s saintly doctor husband. Later Hudson is accidentally responsible for Wyman’s going blind, and thusly stricken by a combination of guilt and lust (later love), he pursues her romantically under an alias, secretly pays for her living and medical expenses, and later becomes a neurosurgeon just in time to save her rattled brain.

Now one of the more interesting ongoing debates in the world of cinemaphiles is between those who think Sirk a subtlety supervise genius, who used melodramatic conventions to cast a cynical eye on a surficy time, and those who think he was just an exquisite purveyor of schlock. My experience with this film lead me in both directions. On my first viewing I was completely drawn in, I bought the whole thing and it seemed powerful drama, but on my second viewing (thank God I watched it twice), all the schlock seemed to come out and I realized what a schmaltzy, even ridicules piece of melodrama this film is. Sirk managed to trick me, which proves he was talented, as he sold me a load goods. I brought the car home only to realize it was all spit and polish of presentation, its story a tortured lemon. Whether this means Sirk was an artistic genius, or just a brilliant conman I don’t rightly know, most likely a bit of both, which if you think about it is really what every successful studio system autor had to be.

As befits a movie based on a book by a Congregationalist Minster, Magnificent Obsession is filled with Christian undertones, many of them provided by the kind of fascinating performance of Otto Kruger, whose serine artiest character can be seen as a stand in for God, the Holy Sprit, the Apostle Peter, or even director Sirk himself (the two were known to have something of a physical resemblance). Sirk regular Agnes Moorhead is here too as a loyal but somewhat stern nurse, and of course the cinematography is rich and beautifully done by Russell Metty . If you see one Sirk helmed Hudson/Wyman romance make it the deeper and more culturally significant All that Heaven Allows, still for high end camp little could top Magnificent Obsession. 4 out of 5.