Douglas Sirk

Magnificent Obsession

Magnificent Obsession

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 a beloved local doctor has a heart attack and dies waiting for the lifesaving 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 amid a series of increasingly wild twists, turns, trials, and tribulations.

Film Info

  • United States
  • 1954
  • 108 minutes
  • Color
  • 2.00:1
  • English
  • Spine #457

TWO-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • High-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Audio commentary from 2008 featuring film scholar Thomas Doherty
  • Magnificent Obsession, John M. Stahl’s 1935 adaptation of the same novel, newly restored
  • From UFA to Hollywood: Douglas Sirk Remembers (1991), a documentary by Eckhart Schmidt
  • Interview from 2009 with screenwriter Robert Blees
  • Interviews from 2008 with filmmakers Allison Anders and Kathryn Bigelow, in which they pay tribute to director Douglas Sirk
  • Trailer
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien

    Cover based on a theatrical poster

Purchase Options

TWO-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • High-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Audio commentary from 2008 featuring film scholar Thomas Doherty
  • Magnificent Obsession, John M. Stahl’s 1935 adaptation of the same novel, newly restored
  • From UFA to Hollywood: Douglas Sirk Remembers (1991), a documentary by Eckhart Schmidt
  • Interview from 2009 with screenwriter Robert Blees
  • Interviews from 2008 with filmmakers Allison Anders and Kathryn Bigelow, in which they pay tribute to director Douglas Sirk
  • Trailer
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien

    Cover based on a theatrical poster
Magnificent Obsession
Cast
Jane Wyman
Helen Phillips
Rock Hudson
Bob Merrick
Barbara Rush
Joyce Phillips
Agnes Moorehead
Nancy Ashford
Otto Kruger
Randolph
Gregg Palmer
Tom Masterson
Sara Shane
Valerie
Paul Cavanagh
Dr. Giraud
Judy Nugent
Judy
George Lynn
Williams
Richard H. Cutting
Dr. Dodge
Robert B. Williams
Sergeant Burnham
Will White
Sergeant Ames
Helen Kleeb
Mrs. Eden
Credits
Director
Douglas Sirk
Produced by
Ross Hunter
Screenplay by
Robert Blees
Based on the screenplay by
Sarah Y. Mason
Based on the screenplay by
Victor Heerman
Based on the novel by
Lloyd C. Douglas
Adaptation by
Wells Root
Director of photography
Russell Metty
Film editing by
Milton Carruth
Original music by
Frank Skinner
Costume design by
Bill Thomas

Current

Magnificent Obsessions
Magnificent Obsessions

Instead of toning down the emotional extremes of this preposteriously plotted story, Douglas Sirk accepts them and allows their full and somewhat demented force to emerge.

By Geoffrey O’Brien

Sirk in the Sun

One Scene

Sirk in the Sun

The trashy contrivances of Magnificent Obsession give way to brilliant, high-art mise-en-scène in a memorable scene that plays with the theme of lost vision.

By Zach Clark

Home for the Holidays with Douglas Sirk

Repertory Picks

Home for the Holidays with Douglas Sirk

As the perfect companion for your holiday blues, spend the final days of the year indulging in a good cry with Douglas Sirk at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Miguel Arteta’s Top 10
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Advice from Douglas Sirk
Advice from Douglas Sirk
In honor of the great German émigré director’s birthday, here’s a short, quotable clip from the 1979 BBC documentary Behind the Mirror: A Profile of Douglas Sirk, more excerpts of which can be found on our release of All That Heaven Allows…