| | Magnificent Obsession DVD (1 Customer Review)
| Category | Criterion Collection DVDs, Dramas Movies, Romance Videos, Essential Cinema, Self-Discovery, Tear Jerker, Personal Triumph, Melodrama | | Starring | Rock Hudson, Jane Wyman, Agnes Moorehead, Barbara Rush, Otto Kruger, Gregg Palmer, Paul Cavanagh, Sara Shane | | Director | Douglas Sirk | | Art Director | Bernard Herzbrun, Emrich Nicholson | | Composer | Frank Skinner | | Director of Photography | Russell Metty | | Editor | Milton Carruth | | Producer | Ross Hunter | | Screenwriter | Robert Blees, Wells Root |
Rock Hudson stars as a reckless playboy whose speed boat injury indirectly causes the death of a local hero in this 1954 Douglas Sirk film. Bonuses: commentary, John M. Stahl's 1935 Magnificent Obsession, documentary, interviews, film essay. Rock Hudson bursts through the screen as reckless playboy Bob Merrick in Douglas Sirk's MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION. He creams across a lake at 150 miles per hour in a brightly painted speedboat. Merrick's haughty indulgence sets off a fantastically spectacular chain of tragic events that will transform him and all of those around him. When the speedboat jaunt ends in an accident, Merrick must be resuscitated using the town's only life-saving mechanism, and as a consequence, leaving the saintly local surgeon, Dr. Philips, to die of a heart attack at his stately villa across the lake. When Merrick learns of his part in the doctor's death, he makes a half-hearted attempt to square things with the devastated widow, Helen (Jane Wyman). However, his careless ham-fisted apologies accidentally cause an accident that leaves Helen completely blind. Under the sure, visionary hand of master melodramatist Sirk, these sprawling, high-pitched coincidences congeal to create a stunning window into the morals and mysteries of the American family and value system. Merrick's trail towards redemption by way of a mysterious brand of Christian philanthropy engenders the "Magnificent Obsession" of the title, as he embarks on a desperate study of medicine in order to cure Helen's blindness and hopefully atone for a life's worth of sins. Magnificent Obsession Reviews: "[A]droitly constructed, with committed performances by the two stars, and gorgeous, shadowy cinematography..." -- Grade: B+-- Tim Purtell, Entertainment Weekly "MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION was the first of Sirk's big-budget, Technicolor melodramas for Universal, but he was already working with distancing devices -- action reflected in mirrors or hard surfaces; colors so bright that they seem to detach themselves from the physical world...."-- Dave Kehr, New York Times Magnificent Obsession | List Price | $39.95 (You save $8.80) | | Studio | Image Entertainment | | Orig Year | 1954 | | All Time Sales Rank |  34132  | | CD Universe Part number | 7787646 | | Catalog number | 1789 | | Discs | 2 | | Release Date | Jan 20, 2009 | | Rating | Not Rated | | Running Time | 108 Minutes | | Additional Info | Image Entertainment | | Movie Details | Color; Image Entertainment; Criterion Collection |
Magnificent Obsession Movie Review Magnificent Obsession DVD 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.
Source: Criterion Collection
Keep Case
Full Frame -
1.33
Audio:
Dolby Digital
1.0 - English
Additional Release Material:
Interviews: Allison Anders, Filmmaker; Kathryn Bigelow, Filmmaker
Documentary: Douglas Sirk: From UFA to Hollywood - 1991
Trailers: Theatrical Trailer
Audio Commentary: Thomas Doherty, Film Scholar
Additional Products:
Booklet - Essay - Geoffrey O'Brien, Critic
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Standard Screen; Soundtrack English
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