#magnificent obsession

[anthonysperkins]

Gregg Palmer and Rock Hudson Magnificent Obsession (1954) dir. Douglas Sirk

[of-fear-and-love]

Outfits from Magnificent Obsession (1954)

Art direction by Bernard Herzbrun, Emrich Nicholson Costume design by Bill Thomas (gowns) Hair stylist Joan St. Oegger Makeup artist Bud Westmore

[womansfilm]

Magnificent Obsession (1954)

[heisokay]

Rock Hudson

[catnipster69]

[popculturetarot]

The Six of Pentacles is about giving and receiving out of charity and compassion, it is understanding that it is a cyclical relationship that giving is receiving and be open to receiving help is giving to others.

[terribleoldwhitemen]

really enjoyed the first chapter of your 2016 thg fic, Magnificent Obsession; the way you write Snow’s pov is morbidly lovely. Did you get any inspiration for it from Sutherland’s interviews about Snow? It’s been a bit but also wanted to lyk that if it is ever continued you’d definitely have at least a few fans interested:)

hello!! I hope you're able to see this, it's been a hectic couple of days for me and I haven't been able to devote the attention answering this deserved until now.

the fic was absolutely inspired by Sutherland's interviews. it wouldn't have existed without them. (aren't they incredible?) I'm so pleased to hear you took a chance on the fic even at one chapter and updated eight years ago.

I had actually picked it back up in 2022. I'd grown as a writer, and I was pretty dissatisfied with the prose when I reread everything. I ended up entirely overhauling the outline and timeline and starting on a complete rewrite as well, but I unfortunately lost steam. I think this was around the time the tbosas movie was announced? it finally spurred me to pick up the book (which hadn't been published when I started Magnificent Obsession; if you'd told me Suzanne Collins would finish her Snow-centric longfic before I finished mine I would have laughed etc etc). I'd been hesitant to pick it up for years because I wasn't sure I'd enjoy a Snow voice that wasn't my own, but I ended up enjoying the book overall and drew inspiration for the planned fic rewrites, especially re: the lucy/katniss parallels.

anyway. thank you for giving me an excuse to ramble about this extremely niche fic which I've always been rather fond of. once more I cannot guarantee an update schedule, but I'm heartened to know there are people out there who would read it if and when I eventually finish it. <3

[monkeyssalad-blog]

Detail from a 1936 advertisement for the film Magnificent Obsession by totallymystified Via Flickr: Starring Irene Dunne and Robert Taylor. Illustration by Rubin.

[mad-prophet-of-the-airwaves]

Rest in peace, Barbara Rush (1927-2024).

[erstwhile-punk-guerito]

[byneddiedingo]

Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman in Magnificent Obsession (Douglas Sirk, 1954)

Cast: Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorehead, Otto Kruger, Barbara Rush, Gregg Palmer, Paul Cavanaugh, Sara Shane, Richard H. Cutting, Judy Nugent, Helen Kleeb. Screenplay: Robert Blees, Wells Root, based on a novel by Lloyd C. Douglas and a screenplay by Sarah Y. Mason and Victor Heerman. Cinematography: Russell Metty. Art direction: Bernard Herzbrun, Emrich Nicholson. Film editing: Milton Carruth. Music: Frank Skinner.

Lloyd C. Douglas, Lutheran pastor turned novelist, was in some ways the anti-Ayn Rand. His Magnificent Obsession, published in 1929 and first filmed in 1935 with Irene Dunne and Robert Taylor directed by John M. Stahl, advocates a kind of "pay it forward" altruism, the obverse of Rand's laissez-faire individualism. Douglas preached a gospel of service to others with no expectation of rewards to oneself. Fortunately, director Douglas Sirk and screenwriters Robert Blees and Wells Root keep the preaching in the 1954 remake down to a minimum -- mostly confining it to the preachiest of the film's characters, the artist Edward Randolph (Otto Kruger), but also using it as an essential element in the development of the central character, Bob Merrick (Rock Hudson), in his transition from heel to hero. This was Hudson's first major dramatic role, the one that launched him from Universal contract player into stardom. Not coincidentally, it was the second of nine films he made with Sirk, movies that range from the negligible Taza, Son of Cochise (1954) to the near-great Written on the Wind (1956). More than anyone, perhaps, Sirk was responsible for turning Hudson from just a handsome hunk with a publicist-concocted screen name into a movie actor of distinct skill. In Magnificent Obsession he demonstrates that essential film-acting technique: letting thought and emotion show on the face. It's a more effective performance than that of his co-star, Jane Wyman, though she was the one who got an Oscar nomination for the movie. As Helen Phillips, whose miseries are brought upon her by Merrick (through no actual fault of his own), Wyman has little to do but suffer stoically and unfocus her eyes to play blind. Hudson has an actual character arc to follow, and he does it quite well -- though reportedly not without multiple takes of his scenes, as Sirk coached him into what he wanted. What Sirk wanted, apparently, is a lush, Technicolor melodrama that somehow manages to make sense -- Sirk's great gift as a director being an ability to take melodrama seriously. Magnificent Obsession, like most of Sirk's films during the 1950s, was underestimated at the time by serious critics, but has undergone reevaluation after feminist critics began asking why films that center on women's lives were being treated as somehow inferior to those about men's. It's not, I think, a great film by any real critical standards -- there's still a little too much preaching and too much angelic choiring on the soundtrack, and the premise that a blind woman assisted by a nurse (Agnes Moorehead) with bright orange hair could elude discovery for months despite widespread efforts to find them stretches credulity a little too far. But it's made and acted with such conviction that I found myself yielding to it anyway.

[mydarkmaterials]

[dweemeister]

“The public and private Rock Hudson” - reported by Tracy Smith for CBS Sunday Morning (originally broadcasted June 26, 2023)

For nearly four decades as a star of films and TV, Rock Hudson was Hollywood's epitome of heterosexual desire. But he also led a secret life as a closeted gay man, and in 1985 became the first celebrity to die of AIDS. Correspondent Tracy Smith looks back on the public and private lives of Hudson, and talks with Stephen Kijak, director of the new HBO documentary Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed; biographer Mark Griffin; and actress Linda Evans, who shared a romantic scene with Hudson on Dynasty at a time when some feared that a kiss could transmit HIV.

[craigfernandez]

[passed-out-real]

Agnes Moorehead Filmography Part 1

Citizen Kane (1941)

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

Journey Into Fear (1943)

Since You Went Away (1944)

Mrs. Parkington (1944)

Dark Passage (1947)

The Lost Moment (1947)

Summer Holiday (1948)

Station West (1948)

Magnificent Obsession (1954)

[byneddiedingo]

Lloyd C. Douglas, Lutheran pastor turned novelist, was in some ways the anti-Ayn Rand. His Magnificent Obsession, published in 1929 and first filmed in 1935 with Irene Dunne and Robert Taylor directed by John M. Stahl, advocates a kind of "pay it forward" altruism, the obverse of Rand's laissez-faire individualism. Douglas preached a gospel of service to others with no expectation of rewards to oneself. Fortunately, director Douglas Sirk and screenwriters Robert Blees and Wells Root keep the preaching in the 1954 remake down to a minimum -- mostly confining it to the preachiest of the film's characters, the artist Edward Randolph (Otto Kruger), but also using it as an essential element in the development of the central character, Bob Merrick (Rock Hudson), in his transition from heel to hero. This was Hudson's first major dramatic role, the one that launched him from Universal contract player into stardom. Not coincidentally, it was the second of nine films he made with Sirk, movies that range from the negligible Taza, Son of Cochise (1954) to the near-great Written on the Wind (1956). More than anyone, perhaps, Sirk was responsible for turning Hudson from just a handsome hunk with a silly publicist-concocted name into a movie actor of distinct skill. In Magnificent Obsession he demonstrates that essential film-acting technique: letting thought and emotion show on the face. It's a more effective performance than that of his co-star, Jane Wyman, though she was the one who got an Oscar nomination for the movie. As Helen Phillips, whose miseries are brought upon her by Merrick (through no actual fault of his own), Wyman has little to do but suffer stoically and unfocus her eyes to play blind. Hudson has an actual character arc to follow, and he does it quite well -- though reportedly not without multiple takes of his scenes, as Sirk coached him into what he wanted. What Sirk wanted, apparently, is a lush, Technicolor melodrama that somehow manages to make sense -- Sirk's great gift as a director being an ability to take melodrama seriously. Magnificent Obsession, like most of Sirk's films during the 1950s, was underestimated at the time by serious critics, but has undergone reevaluation after feminist critics began asking why films that center on women's lives were being treated as somehow inferior to those about men's. It's not, I think, a great film by any real critical standards -- there's still a little too much preaching and too much angelic choiring on the soundtrack, and the premise that a blind woman assisted by a nurse (Agnes Moorehead) with bright orange hair could elude discovery for months despite widespread efforts to find them stretches credulity a little too far. But it's made and acted with such conviction that I found myself yielding to it anyway.

I’m so glad you’re here. You must have known how much I need you now.

MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION — 1954, dir. Douglas Sirk