Rating: NR
Genre:
Drama
Release Date: 08/12/2008
SubTitles: English
Dubbed: English
Sound: DD2
Run Time: 108 min
Flags: Suitable for Children, Suitable for Children
Distributor/Studio: Castaway NW [VCP]
This second film version of
Lloyd C. Douglas' spiritual novel
Magnificent Obsession is in its own way as successful as the first (filmed in 1935) in glossing over the plot holes and logic gaps in the original novel.
Rock Hudson plays
Bob Merrick, a reckless playboy who is indirectly responsible for the death of a kindly and much-beloved doctor. The dead man's wife,
Helen Phillips (
Jane Wyman), refuses to accept
Bob's apologies. When
Helen is accidentally blinded,
Bob decides to "do right" by her anonymously, illustrating author
Douglas' curious edict that the best sort of good deed is the one for which you're not rewarded. In record time,
Bob becomes a brilliant physician, and it is he who performs the sight-restoring surgery on
Helen. Rather than fade into the woodwork unheralded,
Bob is at last forgiven by
Helen, who has fallen in love with him during her sightless months without even knowing it. Luxuriously produced by
Ross Hunter and directed
con brio by
Douglas Sirk,
Magnificent Obsession was one of the most successful of
Universal's big-budget "weepers" of the 1950s.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide