My favourite Russell Metty picture, shot in fabulous Eastmancolor, begins with a view of a small town from way above - from heaven, as it were, where the behaviour of the townsfolk and especially Jane Wyman's children cause all the harm - Mr & Mrs Sirk, you notice, didn't have any* - they are also the villains of the Barbara Stanwyck/ Fred MacMurray
There's Always Tomorrow (the director's next film). There are plenty of the director's trademark mirrors as well. The book referenced, 'Walden' by Henry David Thoreau, is the story of simple living in a cabin - Rock Hudson sure has made the Old Mill look lovely, even glueing back together the Wedgewood jug she likes so much, but the children (Gloria Talbott and William Reynolds) gang up and buy her a television, thinking that imprisonment a better fate than an unsuitable relationship with a 'gardener'. Agnes Moorehead is at least on Wyman's side, in good prickly pear support.
An old man who wants to marry her will only drink one martini all night - Rock Hudson with his group of wine and music loving friends are a far better bet. It's tempting to think that this is the 'old mill' which is ransomed in
State and Main, protected by its own resident cute deer, so beautifully restored by Rock and art director
Alexander Golitzen (absolutely incredible credits, from
Foreign Correspondent through to
Breezy).
Frank Skinner provides the underscore.
There's always some philosophy at the centre of Sirk's work.
* Sirk had a son by his first wife, who she raised as a Nazi and refused to let him see him. He died on the Eastern Front in 1942.
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