Written on the Wind (1956) is one of classical Hollywood’s most striking films and ranks among Douglas Sirk’s finest achievements. An intense melodrama about an alcoholic playboy who marries the woman his best friend secretly loves, the film is highly stylised, psychologically complex, and marked by Sirk’s characteristic charting of the social realities of 1950s America.

This first single study of Written on the Wind reassesses the film’s artistic heritage and place within the wider framework of contemporary American culture. Incorporating original archival research, Peter William Evans examines the production, promotion and reception of Written on the Wind, exploring its themes - of time, memory, space, family, class and sex - as well as its brilliance of form. Its vivid aesthetics, powerful performances and profound treatment of human emotions, make Written on the Wind a masterpiece of Hollywood melodrama.