similarities to Written on the Wind

Both date from 1956, and both offer a colorful, and not always flattering, portrayal of Texas society and culture. Although the eras don’t synch perfectly, both are about well-to-do Texas oil families in the last century and the issues that result from the acquisition and possession of said wealth. Rock Hudson appears in both films, playing more or less the same role: a kindly, level-headed, low keyed sort, but eminently the company man, the family patriarch in one case and a kind of adviser to the patriarch in in the other. The free-spirited daughter Luz in Giant has a counterpart – a more extreme version actually – in the Dorothy Malone character in Written.

For all their pretensions, especially Giant, both films strike me as elegantly produced soap operas which anticipated the TV series ‘Dallas’ of a quarter century later. Giant casts the larger shadow historically: it’s considered an all-time classic while Written is still relatively unknown except to a coterie of admirers and remembered today if at all as a prime example of the overwrought Fifties melodrama. But truth be told, Written on the Wind is probably the better film.