text: In her autobiography,Laureen Bacall reveals that Bogie told her that she should not make such dud movies as this one or something like that.At the time,Douglas Sirk was labeled "weepies for women",actually,he was restored to favor,at least in Europa,after he stopped directing.And when he filmed "written on the wind" ,Sirk had only three movies to make:"tarnished Angels","A time to love and a time to die",his masterpiece,IMHO,and finally" Imitation of life"(1960).Then there was silence. Actually Bacall and Hudson characters do not interest Sirk.They are too straight,too virtuous.Dorothy Malone -who was some kind of substitute for his former German star Zarah Leander-and her brother Robert Stack provide the main interest of the plot.A plot constructed continuously ,most of the movie being a long flashback.The instability of the brother and the sister ,from a family of rich Texan oil owners,is brought to the fore by garish clothes,and rutilant cars that go at top speed in a derricks landscape. Malone's metamorphosis at the end of the movie is stunning :suit and chignon,toying with a small derrick:she's ready for life,the rebel is tamed. Now alone,because she's lost Hudson (but anyway,he was not in love with her).This end is a bit reactionary,but melodrama is par excellence reactionary;three years later,in "imitation of life",Sarah-Jane (Susan Kohner) will be blamed because she does not know her place.