Was it Lauren Bacall or was it her character but she comes off as so silly in this movie. In my mind she is the weak link. So prissy and choosing the drunk kover Rock Hudson just because the drunk had money....what a shallow person
shareEveryone in this movie is very human in the sense that no one is fully "good" and no one is fully "bad". Rock Hudson even, putting the moves on his friend's wife when his friend is down?? As amazed as I was by most of the characters, I was astounded by the choice of LAuren Bacall. All the film I kept asking myself.. why? WHY? She has no dimension in the entire movie. She is not smart, sassy, funny, or even very pretty. She (or her character) just freaking sucks. I kept wondering why the men kept fighting over her the entire movie. She just did not seem worth the trouble.
Either way, this movie was so real in its depiction of human nature I was compelled by it regardless. I really admire Douglas Sirk's style and how he approaches and reflects (and contrasts) reality and the notion of realism. No wonder he was fassbinder's hero.
But yeah sorry I overextended myself, the point is Lauren Bacall (or her character) is... ?. meh
And yes this film IS a 100 min (or whatever) soap opera. Still good though.
I agree with you, th interesting thing is that in Key largo Lauren Bacall is so much more desirable, you could see how any man would want her, but in this movie, she is just prissy and not a desirable woman at all, at least not one men would fight for.
shareNo wonder he was Fassbinder's hero.Oh, I didn't know that.
And yes this film IS a 100 min (or whatever) soap opera. Still good though.Yup share
Lauren Bacall hints in her memoirs that she only did this because her career was slowing down and she thought that working with the very popular Douglas Sirk would lift it, plus they reportedly paid her a lot of money. On-screen she does seem to be the only one who doesn't appear to be in on the joke (the other three would work again for Douglas Sirk in The Tarnished Angels and Rock Hudson had already worked with the maestro several times before), but at the same time it does help her fish-out-of-water personification.
Douglas Sirk stood by his decision; I don't remember the exact quote about why he cast Lauren Bacall (it is in James Harvey's book Movie Love in the 50s), but he said something like because there was something a little off in her face and in her manners, something unpredictable and unique.
"GOD--WAS--WRONG!"--James Mason, Bigger Than Life
Douglas Sirk stood by his decision; I don't remember the exact quote about why he cast Lauren Bacall (it is in James Harvey's book Movie Love in the 50s), but he said something like because there was something a little off in her face and in her manners, something unpredictable and unique.
I guess that's down to Bacall being too natural for the world of that kind of film which is pure artifice. She's totally out of place in that film but her presence in that film allows us to see what's wrong and artificial about the other characters. She's an independent, working girl and suddenly she becomes sucked in to the same system that denied her opportunities to work on her own and the like. Her character is quite contradictory in that she wants to be independent but she also wants to be taken care of as well. And Dorothy Malone's character is the logical extension as to what that would lead to. Being a neurotic sexpot and totally unintelligent and vulgar.
Sirk in general as much as possible didn't want audiences to identify with actors so that we see their characters objectively. Like Dorothy Malone's character is about as real as a doll and she's thoroughly bad taste and vulgar but as it goes along we see that she's a victim of that society and certainly her father's obsession for oil and big business. Although the production code would have protested that the father be written more critically there are enough hints to show he's not what he seems. Like look how quickly he lunges for his gun when he faces that gas station attendant who's caught with Marylee.
"Ça va by me, madame...Ça va by me!" - The Red Shoes
The role needed someone who could smile vacantly through Robert Stack's obnoxious overtures. Bacall is such a tough cookie in previous films. I kept expecting her to belt him (verbally or physically) more like she does with Dorothy Malone ("Pardon me... I'm brushing you out of my hair"). But then she endures his idiocy and marries him and you go "Oh Bacall has succumbed to 1950s conformity/conventions by this point in her career"
I like Bacall and she does her best, but... she's looking kind of manly in the face, and definitely a sourpuss in this. And of course hubby Bogart will be dead in the next year.
Stack is awful too. But probably more because he's playing a lech and has to enact that ridiculous plot-revealing fever-dream.