(Douglas Sirk, 1953, 79 min)

Sat Sept 2, 4:00 pm
Tue Sept 5, 7:00 pm

A failed actress and mother of three (Barbara Stanwyck) returns to the husband (Richard Carlson) and family she deserted years before in this superior 1953 drama by Douglas Sirk, a very personal reworking of a standard soap-opera plot. True to form, Sirk transforms the material through a careful and ironic subversion of the conventions; what emerges is a biting assessment of the value of survival in the face of small-town meanness and prejudice, a neat use of a very bourgeois format to satirize its audience. (Don Drucker, Chicago Reader)

 

(Douglas Sirk, 1955, 89 min)

Sun Sept 3, 4:00 pm
Wed Sept 6, 7:00 pm

A masterpiece (1955) by one of the most inventive and recondite directors ever to work in Hollywood, Douglas Sirk. The story (which Rainer Werner Fassbinder remade as Ali: Fear Eats the Soul) concerns a romance between a middle-aged, middle-class widow (Jane Wyman) and a brawny young gardener (Rock Hudson)—the stuff of a standard weepie, you might think, until Sirk’s camera begins to draw a deeply disturbing, deeply compassionate portrait of a woman trapped by stifling moral and social codes. Sirk’s meaning is conveyed almost entirely by his mise-en-scene—a world of glistening, treacherous surfaces, of objects that take on a terrifying life of their own; he is one of those rare filmmakers who insist that you read the image. (Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader)

 

(Douglas Sirk, 1955, 85 min)

Sat Sept 9, 4:00 pm
Tue Sept 12, 7:00 pm

Douglas Sirk is best known for his highly stylized Technicolor melodramas, but he also did superlative work in restrained black and white. There’s Always Tomorrow (1955) is a virtuoso study in tones, ranging from the blinding sunlight of a desert resort to the expressionist shadows of the suburban home where Fred MacMurray lives in unhappy union with Joan Bennett. Barbara Stanwyck is the old flame who turns up by accident, rekindling for MacMurray the dangerous illusion that happiness is still possible. With Pat Crowley and William Reynolds. (Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader)

 

(Douglas Sirk, 1956, 99 min)

Sun Sept 10, 4:00 pm
Wed Sept 13, 7:00 pm

One of the most remarkable and unaccountable films ever made in Hollywood, Douglas Sirk’s 1957 masterpiece turns a lurid, melodramatic script into a screaming Brechtian essay on the shared impotence of American family and business life. Sirk’s highly imaginative use of color—to accent, undermine, and sometimes even nullify the drama—remains years ahead of contemporary technique. The degree of stylization is high and impeccable: one is made to understand the characters as icons as well as psychologically complex creations. With Dorothy Malone (in the performance of her career), Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, and Rock Hudson. (Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader)

 

(Douglas Sirk, 1958, 91 min)

Sat Sept 16, 4:00 pm
Tue Sept 19, 7:00 pm

Douglas Sirk took a vacation from Ross Hunter and Technicolor for this 1958 production, though he retained Rock Hudson, who turns in an astonishingly good performance as a journalist fascinated by the sordid lives of a trio of professional stunt fliers (Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, and Jack Carson). Based on a minor novel by William Faulkner (Pylon), the film betters the book in every way, from the quality of characterization to the development of the dark, searing imagery. Made in black-and-white CinemaScope, the film doesn’t survive on television; it should be seen in a theater or not at all. (Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader)

 

(Douglas Sirk, 1959, 125 min)

Sun Sept 17, 4:00 pm
Wed Sept 20, 7:00 pm

Douglas Sirk’s 1959 film was the biggest grosser in Universal’s history until the release of Airport, yet it’s also one of the most intellectually demanding films ever made in Hollywood. The secret of Sirk’s double appeal is a broadly melodramatic plotline, played with perfect conviction yet constantly criticized and challenged by the film’s mise-en-scene, which adds levels of irony and analysis through a purely visual inflection. Lana Turner stars as a young widow and mother who will do anything to realize her dreams of Broadway stardom; her story is intertwined with that of Susan Kohner, the light-skinned daughter of Turner’s black maid, who is tempted to pass for white. By emphasizing brilliant surfaces, bold colors, and the spatial complexities of 50s modern architecture, Sirk creates a world of illusion, entrapment, and emotional desperation. (Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader)