Written on the Wind

12/14/2025

I don’t suppose there is anything very original about this plot. Very rich, widowed, oil man “Jasper” (Ian Keith) has two spoilt grown-up children. “Kyle” (Robert Stack) is a wastrel alcoholic, “Marylee” (Dorothy Malone) is a lady of, let’s say, easy virtue. The son is best friends with the company’s geologist “Mitch” (Rock Hudson) and it’s these two men who meet the secretary “Lucy” (Lauren Bacall). Both take an instant shine to her, and after some vulgar displays from “Kyle” you might have put your cash on her choosing “Mitch”, but for some pretty inexplicable reason she succumbs to what she perceives is a decent vulnerability underneath the gin and corn-liquor exterior, and agrees to marry him. This ought to be the end of things, but “Mitch” can’t get her out of his head, “Marylee” can’