Magnificent Obsession 11/15 Blu-ray (Rental)

Reckless playboy Bob Merrick (Rock Hudson, in his breakthrough role) crashes his speedboat, requiring emergency attention from the town’s only resuscitator—at the very moment that a beloved local doctor has a heart attack and dies waiting for the lifesaving device. Thus begins one of Douglas Sirk’s most flamboyant master classes in melodrama, a delirious Technicolor mix of the sudsy and the spiritual in which Bob and the doctor’s widow, Helen (Jane Wyman), find themselves inextricably linked amid a series of increasingly wild twists, turns, trials, and tribulations. TWO BLU RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • High definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack • Audio commentary from 2008 featuring film scholar Thomas Doherty • Magnificent Obsession, John M. Stahl’s 1935 adaptation of the same novel, newly restored • From UFA to Hollywood: Douglas Sirk Remembers (1991), a documentary by German filmmaker Eckhart Schmidt • Interviews from 2008 with filmmakers Allison Anders and Kathryn Bigelow, in which they pay tribute to Sirk • Theatrical trailer • PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien