I watched MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION yesterday, for the first time in a few years, as I worked my way through the Douglas Sirk Box Set.

Like all of Sirk's Hollywood movies, there's a lot more going on in the movie than there appears to be. That said, MO is probably the director's most eventful film. Where his other pictures concentrate on the dramatic psychological conflict between characters, this one has loads of life-altering events. Within the first reel, the male lead Bob Merrick is in an accident that takes him to death's door. And the female lead's husband dies of heart attack. A short while later the female lead, Helen Phillips (Jane Wyman) is involved in an accident that robs her of her sight. Ladle on top of this Sirk's sumptuous technicolor design schemes and all this melodrama might have seemed a bit contrived (you think?), it it hadn't been for the philosophical glue that Sirk binds it all together with.

In MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION, the doctrine espoused is reminiscent of Rhonda Byrne's "The Secret", and is so important to the story that the film derives its title from the unnamed philosophy that is referred to by its "prophet", Edward Randolph (Otto Krueger), as "a magnificent obsession". Yet Sirk wisely leaves the details in the background. We never really get the full picture of how the philosophy works, but this is how Sirk keeps the whole thing from becoming preachy.

Sirk himself claimed in an interview on BBC TV that he was more interested in the "circle of life" angle ... Dr Phillips dies so that Bob Merrick can live and carry on his good works for him. But whatever the director's intentions, what we ended up with was a superior romantic melodrama with a strong underlying sub-text that says, Give with no thought of receiving and the world will be a better place.

No argument from me ...

The whole plot to this thing is so contrived that from the get go it's not going to work. A man gets saved from a reckless act at the expense of another man's life. He then woos the guys widow. Filled with guilt he goes to medical school. He begins to learn about things she can do to help others. The wife goes blind. Hmmmm! I wonder what is going to happen. The thing that is missing is the ability to bring the husband back from the dead. I know I'm being sarcastic, but there are so many lame plotting contrivances and virtual impossibilities here, and the sappy conclusion. I'm sure this all played well with people who want a happy ending at all costs, including believability. Rock Hudson was a handsome guy and Jane Wyman was also a good actress. Too hokey for my tastes, however.

'Magnificent Obsession' could and should have been a lot better, and this is coming from somebody who really wanted to like the film. Being somebody that likes enough of Douglas Sirk's other films, 'Imitation of Life' being a prime example, and who appreciates melodramas when done well. Was also intrigued in how Jane Wyman's Oscar-nominated performance would fare and what the fuss was about Rock Hudson's breakthrough performance here.

So it was really sad for me to say that 'Magnificent Obsession' didn't really do much for me. It was a hit in the day, but in my view over-time it has not held up and the things that people criticise some of Sirk's other films for (not always agreed with just to say) are major failings in 'Magnificent Obsession'. It doesn't have enough of what made Sirk the interesting director he was, other films of his did much better at showing his trademark touches, and as far as his films go it's one of his weakest.

It's not all bad certainly. The best thing about 'Magnificent Obsession' is the way it looks. The film still looks very handsome and ravishingly shot in Technicolor. The music does contain some inspired and beautiful use of Chopin, a favourite of mine when it comes to classical music, which has an achingly elegiac quality.

One can see why Hudson properly became a star after this film, he looks great and is ardent, charismatic and doesn't seem stiff. Sirk was one of the few directors Hudson worked with who knew and understood Hudson's strengths and played to and made the most of them, evident in all their collaborations and evident here. Otto Kruger and Agnes Moorehead are solid support.

Was a lot less keen on Wyman sadly and out of all the actresses nominated in the Best Actress Oscar category that year, she was by far the least deserving. She did not seem very engaged at all with her role and seems entirely distant in it. How the character is written is a big problem too, the more nonsensical the story gets the character loses any sense of realism. She and Hudson didn't seem to have much chemistry in 'Magnificent Obsession' either, the little that there is still manages to not be all that interesting let alone sizzling. Sirk directed with a lot more passion and subtlety elsewhere, he really does struggle to reign in the melodramatic excess and narrative silliness and he seemed at sea and as uninterested in the material as Wyman.

Not that they can be entirely blamed. The characters are very difficult to care for and believe so unrealistically that one tires of them. The script manages to be both over-heated and under-nourished, lots of soap and syrup overdose but no substance underneath. Sirk often did incredibly well with his hold no barrels approach to his subjects, but that hold no barrels approach is lost underneath all the outlandish nonsense, excessively sentimentality and unintentional camp that passes for a very slight and dully paced story. The ending felt very tacked on and jarred with everything else and other than the use of Chopin the score is over-bearing and too syrupy.

In summary, semi-watchable once but quite disappointing. Magnificent it isn't sad to say. 4/10