Magnificent Obsession - Criterion Collection

Magnificent Obsession - Criterion Collection
by Douglas Sirk

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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Irene Dunne, Jane Wyman, Robert Taylor, Rock Hudson
Director: Douglas Sirk
Brand: Image Entertainment
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Special Edition
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 108 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-01-20
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Criterion Collection

Movie Reviews of Magnificent Obsession - Criterion Collection

Movie Review: TWO versions of the film are here
Summary: 5 Stars

This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film

Magnificent Obsession, directed by Douglas Sirk, is a gem of the 1950's and one of numerous films Sirk directed that star Rock Hudson.

Magnificent Obsession is about a daredevil boater named Bob Merrick who is injured and needs a resuscitating machine to revive him after a near drowning. The machine was borrowed from a man who needed it for his heart condition. He suffers an attack while it is being borrowed and dies. The man's widow Helen, blames Bob for her husband's death and she is later blinded in an accident caused by him. They later meet again and fall in love when he disguises his voice and she thinks he is someone else.

The film is based on a novel by Lloyd C. Douglas. The DVD includes the 1935 version of the film which is also very good.

Disc one contains the film with optional audio commentary by film scholar Thomas Doherty, a theatrical trailer and interviews with Allison Anders and Kathryn Bigelow.

Disc two contains the 1935 version of the film and an 82 minute interview with Douglas Sirk. The interview is in German with subtitles.

I found both versions of the film to be very good and I highly recommend this DVD set.

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Summary of Magnificent Obsession - Criterion Collection

Reckless playboy Bob Merrick (Rock Hudson, in his breakthrough role) crashes his speedboat, requiring emergency attention from the town s only resuscitator at the very moment that beloved local Dr. Phillips has a heart attack and dies waiting for the life-saving device. Thus begins one of Douglas Sirk's most flamboyant master classes in melodrama, a delirious Technicolor mix of the sudsy and the spiritual in which Bob and the doctor s widow, Helen (Jane Wyman), find themselves inextricably linked to one another amid a series of increasingly wild twists, turns, trials, and tribulations. For this release, Criterion also presents John M. Stahl's 1935 film version of the Lloyd C. Douglas novel, starring Irene Dunne and Robert Taylor.

SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES:
New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Audio commentary featuring film scholar Thomas Doherty
Magnificent Obsession (1935, 102 minutes): a new digital transfer of John M. Stahl s complete earlier version of the film
Douglas Sirk: From UFA to Hollywood (1991): a rare 80-minute documentary by German filmmaker Eckhart Schmidt in which Sirk reflects upon his career
Video interviews with filmmakers Allison Anders and Kathryn Bigelow, paying tribute to Sirk
Theatrical trailer
PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by film critic Geoffrey O Brien

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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