Magnificent Obsession

This is one of Irene Dunne's better pictures. She once said she enjoyed the character she played, and it is apparent in this movie. In fact, this would be a good movie to watch if you wish to view Irene Dunne's native charm and mystery. She was a wonderful actress and this was a good example of her performance style in a serious role.

Two movies 20 years apart based on the same book about a woman who's blinded in a car accident proved pivotal to a pair of future well-known actors. The earliest film involved young Robert Taylor, whose screen presence exponentially increased after his performance in December 1935's "Magnificent Obsession." Adapted from Lloyd Douglas' 1929 weepy novel, Taylor played a spoiled brat who was in love with the stricken woman, but suddenly gains maturity by motivating himself to become a brain surgeon.

Taylor was in his second year in Hollywood, and saw some success in his earlier appearance in "Broadway Melody of 1936." Casting the character of the son from a wealthy family whose love for the bottle was more important than treating people decently was crucial for the John Stahl-directed movie. After several choices were considered to play opposite actress Irene Dunn, Taylor was selected, with positive results.

"Magnificent Obsession" bounces from one tragedy to the next, but contains shining examples of sacrificing oneself for the greater good of human kind. Taylor plays the wisecracking Robert Merrick, whose drunken accident nearly kills him, only to be saved by the local hospital's only ventilator. Trouble is, at the same time Robert was hogging the sole ventilator, the highly esteemed generous philanthropist Dr. Hudson dies because of the same hospital's lack of another ventilator. Dr. Hudson's younger wife, Helen (Dunne), loathes the young man whom she feels is responsible for her husband's death. Robert meets and falls for the widow (in real life Irene was 35 to Taylor's 24). Driving her home, he becomes aggressive in his passion. Helen escapes his clutches by jumping out of the parked car, only to be struck by a passing automobile. "When his character makes the transition from self-absorbed playboy to dedicated doctor and committed philanthropist," describes film reviewer Sean Axmaker, "you can see the guilt and regret in his face and the seriousness in his new demeanor."

The author of 'Magnificent Obsession,' Lloyd Douglas, a former church minister who is also known for his 1942 novel 'The Robe,' adopted the Bible's Gospel of Matthew passage "That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly" as a basis for both Dr. Hudson's generosity and Robert Merrick's remarkable turnaround as a Nobel Prize-winning brain surgeon. Merrick's focus on dedicating his life to cure the blind Helen sets up a tearjerker conclusion.

Taylor saw his fortunes in Hollywood increase after "Magnificent Obsession," a film where the actor was a loan-out to Universal Pictures. He began receiving substantial roles from his employer, MGM, after the studio realized what a gem it had in its stable. Ironically, the 1954 remake of the same book also boasted the career of another young actor who had been bouncing around in low budget adventure movies. Rock Hudson was selected for the Merrick role in director Douglas Sirk's "Magnificent Obsession." The film became a huge hit for Universal, catapulting Hudson into the limelight as Hollywood's new romantic star.

Magnificent Obsession - 1935 I've probably watched Universal's 1954 version of Magnificent Obsession 25 times while researching the movies made in the San Bernardino mountains. This is one of those films where there can be no doubt about its location, Lake Arrowhead. But I have always had my doubt about the original 1935 version as ever having been made in the mountains, even though one of the Captain's of the Arrowhead Queen unequivocally stated that he had heard it had been filmed at Lake Arrowhead. In my research over the years, I had never been able to ascertain one way or the other until August, 2000 at the U.C.L.A. Film Archives. The most pleasant surprise is that there is at least one identifiable scene with Lake Arrowhead in the background - including a speedboat cruising across the lake. It is a very brief scene and by far and away, the majority of the film is shot in a studio. Another equally pleasant surprise is a very young (23) Robert Taylor playing a sophisticated playboy (#1) and then an older doctor (#2) and pulling it off believably. His maturity and acting ability are evident from the first frame. Irene Dunne, who was 7 years older, is an accomplished and polished actress with only a few groans to show for her effort. (Her groping blind scenes leave you exasperated.) Comic relief is supplied by an aged Charles Butterworth, as an unlikely suitor to a very young Betty Furness, the step-daughter of Ms. Dunne. This is not the soapy Universal version done later by Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman, but a thoughtful, intelligent script that is closer to the original Lloyd C. Douglas novel, who just happened to be the screenwriter on this version. The print of the 1935 version is very dark and will probably never be shown again in public unless a restoration effort is made. Unfortunately, there are too many films to restore and only so much money available.

I saw this movie only once while in high school, many years ago. I have many times seen the Rock Hudson/Jane Wyman version and re-watch it, just because the story is so good in its purest form. The RH and JW version is truly sappy, and must have been one of the top ten to help coin the phrase "Chick Flick". The story is so much better told through it's literature, but like so many, I love to see literature come to life, and see if the Director and Producers have any likenesses to my own imagination. Lloyd C Douglas was a dear man, I'm sure, as an author I found him a bit sophomoric, but nonetheless, enjoyable. His others books, are in the same vein, and worth reading, especially "White Banners", which is also made into a film, with the same overtones as "Magnificent Obsession". Another one of his books worth noting, is "Dr. Hudson's Secret Journal", which isn't a true sequel, but sheds light on the theory that lights M.O.'s fire.

"Magnificent Obsession" is a 1935 film starring Irene Dunne and Robert Taylor; it was remade in the '50s in Technicolor and starred Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson. The story is preposterous, the melodrama is over the top, but this film gave both Taylor, a farm boy from Nebraska and Hudson, a truck driver from Illinois, their big breaks.

Robert Merrick (Taylor) is a drunken playboy who, one afternoon, falls off his sailboat and has to be resuscitated with the use of what's called in this film a "pulmotor," a device that forces oxygen into the lungs.

Unfortunately, the pulmotor was needed across the lake for an older man, a Dr. Hudson, who has had a heart attack, but because one isn't available, the man dies. When his wife (Dunne) and daughter (Betty Furness) arrive home, they get the horrible news. There is bitterness everywhere because Dr. Hudson was beloved, a fine doctor and an exceptional man, and Merrick is a drunken, rich loser.

At one point, Merrick meets a man (Ralph Morgan) who gives him the secret philosophy that Dr. Hudson lived by and taught him - give anonymously and without expecting repayment.

When Merrick spots Mrs. Hudson, he has no idea who she is and tries to pick her up. One day, he offers her a ride and "runs out of gas." As she's leaving the car to take a ride with someone else, a car hits her and she is badly injured - in fact, she's blinded.

Merrick now befriends her in the park, where she sits practicing her Braille. He doesn't identify himself - she calls him "Dr. Robert"; he tells her that he once had aspirations to be a doctor himself. He arranges for her to have a steady income, since Dr. Hudson gave most of his money away and only has worthless stocks - she thinks her husband's copper stocks are now worth a lot -- and then he arranges for some of the finest doctors in the world to meet in Paris and study her. She thinks it's because her husband was so highly regarded. Alas, the prognosis is that the doctors see no point in surgery. It goes on from there, assuming fabulous aspects.

This kind of melodrama was extremely popular in the 1930s; director Douglas Sirk loved this type of film and remade some of them in the '50s, giving them big, glitzy productions, and made some new ones as well.

Though today the plot seems ridiculous, because of the commitment and likability of the actors and the spiritual undertone that goes throughout the film, somehow one doesn't stop watching, and it sure worked well in 1935 and 1954.

Robert Taylor is gloriously handsome, known for his perfect profile, resonant speaking voice, and charming presence. I have never considered him much of an actor, but he was my mother's favorite, and I watch him every time he's on TCM in her honor. He holds the record for being employed by a studio the longest - 24 years with MGM, until it dissolved, and went on to more films, a successful television show, and he replaced Ronald Reagan on Death Valley Days.

Irene Dunne gives a lovely performance without histrionics or being overdone in any way.

Good movie? For what it is, yes.