'I'm filthy, period!'

On Douglas Sirk's 'Written on the Wind'

Written on the Wind features one of my all-time favorite performances: Dorothy Malone as Marylee Hadley, a devious shit-stirrer born into an immensely wealthy Texas oil dynasty.

Her expression defaults to a defiant sneer, her posture both confident and relaxed. She is unafraid to dance violently, spew whatever venom comes to mind at a given moment, or initiate random dates with various men around town. She is a bastion of beautiful vulgarity that is antithetical to the repressed, unnervingly well-manicured view of white America so often associated with the 1950s.

“I’m filthy, period!” she shouts at her brother towards the end of the film.

Marylee is key to unfurling the intricate emotional and sexual conflicts pulsating through Douglas Sirk’s seminal melodrama. She gets characters to say what they otherwise wouldn’t, to act on their baser instincts.¹