Magnificent Obsession [VHS]

Magnificent Obsession [VHS]
by Douglas Sirk

Magnificent Obsession [VHS]

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Product details

Actor: Agnes Moorehead, Barbara Rush, Jane Wyman, Otto Kruger, Rock Hudson
Director: Douglas Sirk
Producer: Ross Hunter
Writer: Finley Peter Dunne
Writer: Lloyd C. Douglas
Writer: Robert Blees
Writer: Sarah Y. Mason
Writer: Victor Heerman
Writer: Wells Root
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog; German (Original Language)
Format: Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
Running Time: 108 minutes
Release Date: 1998-01-01
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: Universal Studios
Studio: Universal Studios

VHS Movie Reviews of Magnificent Obsession [VHS]

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.

Movie Review: "I'll Have a Douglas Sirk Burger...
Summary: 5 Stars

I give this set five stars for the 1954 version only. The 1935 version gets two stars in my book. The earlier version contains flat direction from John M. Stahl that doesn't exploit the potential of it's tear jerker story. Robert Taylor's spoiled playboy comes off as affected and boring. There's zip chemistry between he and Irene Dunne which is odd considering they were close in age. Possible reasons may be that Dunne's character is horribly underwritten. I also knock it down a notch for the alleged comic relief offered by the insufferable Arthur Treacher in another cliched butler role. The 1954 version directed by Douglas Sirk grabs the gusto. Sirk pushes all the right buttons and gets all the juice out of what could be potentially mawkish material. He's abetted by terrific lead performances from Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman who project palpable romantic chemistry despite the obvious age disparity between the two. It also doesn't hurt to have the terrific Agnes Moorehead in the cast. This set is essential for the 1954 version with the 1935 version a mere curio that doesn't diminish the package's power.

Movie Review: Thank God For Film Restoration!
Summary: 5 Stars

Bravo to Criterion for, not only including the beautifully restored 1935 version of this film, but for giving it its own separate DVD! I honestly thought that the Irene Dunn/Robert Taylor version was lost forever, so you can imagine just how thrilled I was to hear that Criterion was coming out with both versions of Magnificent Obsession. To see the original in its former glory was wonderful. The state of the film was left in such a horrible condition, at times it looked like it was being spliced together. The film also alternated between being either too dark, or too light. The sound seemed like it jumped at times as well. I am beside myself that this film was saved, and just in time! Now all they need to do is to find the edited out scenes from the dream sequence in Spellbound and resore those to their former glory! I'd perform cartwheels!

Movie Review: Another Classy Special Edition from Criterion
Summary: 5 Stars

Technicolor melodramas don't get much better than the ones Douglas Sirk made: All That Heaven Allows - Criterion Collection, Written on the Wind - Criterion Collection and Imitation Of Life (Two-Movie Special Edition) (Universal Legacy Series). It was Magnificent Obsession, however, that paved the way for those later masterpieces. Sirk's film was based on Lloyd C. Douglas' 1929 novel of the same name - a sudsy romance novel that became a best seller. The book was first adapted onto film in 1935 but the author wasn't too happy with the results. Sirk did not like the source material and hadn't seen the 1935 film and later described his own version as a "combination of kitsch and craziness and trashiness."

The first disc features an audio commentary by film scholar Thomas Doherty. He starts off by talking about how Technicolor was used to lure people back to movie theaters after the rise of television. Naturally, he gives a biographical sketch of Douglas Sirk including his transition from European cinema to Hollywood. Doherty does an excellent job of analyzing the film's style and its themes on this very informative track.

"Tributes to Sirk" features filmmakers and Sirk fans Allison Anders and Kathryn Bigelow talking about their love of his films. Anders shows off her vintage Sirk movie posters and speaks about how her mother introduced her to his films. Bigelow cites Written on the Wind as an important influence on her films, especially her first one, The Loveless. Bigelow talks about how she discovered his films and recounts how she actually got to meet the director at the Lacarno Film Festival where The Loveless had its world premiere.

Also included is a theatrical trailer.

The second disc includes the 1935 version of Magnificent Obsession directed by John M. Stahl and starring Irene Dunne and Robert Taylor. It is fine effort but certainly lacks the visual flare of Sirk's version.

"From UFA to Hollywood: Douglas Sirk Remembers" is a feature-length documentary released in 1991. It features a rare 1980 interview with the man. He reflects, in detail, on his life and career with an emphasis on his time at Universal Pictures.

Movie Review: WELL DONE CRITERION!
Summary: 5 Stars

The Sirk movie is great. It was great 45 years ago when it was not something you HAD to admire. It was still great when I caught a 35 mm print five years ago. In the movie theaters it has always been shown in the Academy ratio, as shot. IMDB is a commercial organization and its 1,85 hysteria to accomodate the DVD releases is a disgrace.
THE MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION is well served by ROCK HUDSON who was not taken seriously because he was breathtakingly handsome. Look at JOHN WAYNE in the thirties, he was that handsome too but nobody held it against him. He was not taken seriously because his films were not prestigious.
Everybody was even better in ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS.
The JOHN STAHL version is great. Again the new canon: all melodramas ARE masterpieces, has done him no service. IRENE DUNNE is superb, as usual and ROBERT TAYLOR was a great actor. I mean it.
Could we have 1,33 editions of the movies from the fifties, at least.
All the movie buffs would be willing to pay extra money. I am deprived of the BOETTICHER and DAVES movies and couldn't face watching SUMMER PLACE, a great movie in that hideous 1,85 format. It lies with IMITATION OF LIFE and some others.
The author LLOYD C. DOUGLAS was a queer one, a Lutheran minister. He wrote only eleven novels. The last ones THE ROBE and THE BIG FISHERMAN are straight Christian novels, or Christian romances.
THE MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION is the first one (1922). For me, Douglas was rather some kind of spiritualist than a true orthodox, in spite of
the Christian themes or conversions. I strongly recommend to lovers of American literature GREEN LIGHT, WHITE BANNERS and DISPUTED PASSAGE, they will be rewarded by some bizarre but interesting thinking, not just some
queer praise of medical science. Like the movies, literature must not be
pure pleasure but has to reveal its significant treasures.

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Summary of Magnificent Obsession [VHS]

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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