Written On The Wind

Douglas Sirk - 1956
Sirk is not in direct social criticism so much here, or at least he only is insofar as one is able to solve the puzzle. What we have here is clearly repressed desire, sexual desire, and the social relations underpinning it. Lauren Bacall is given a slightly glazed look, with a nice picture of a slightly older person than one would see in the modern. One thing worth mentioning here is the surprsingly nuanced, in the overall melodrama picture, of the daighter. O.K., she's a nymphomaniac, but she isn't laughed at, or seen as ridiculous; this is a confused person with a problem.
The look is of course hyper real with the saturated colours. Elegance, with also a narrative structure where something is shown at the start, then fully explained later. With one of Sirk's now cliched roll-backs/ forwards in time.
This isn't quite as visceral as 'All That Heaven Allows', more of an enclosed portrait. But it really does say more about sexual desire than one would expect it to be able to get away with.