Review of 'Written on the Wind' (1956)

At first I found Written on the Wind boring, being dropped into the courtship between Lucy and Kyle without knowledge of the characters, so I had no feeling, interest or care for the story. But the film soon developed spectacle as the larger tree of characters was revealed and we had first glimpse of the family dynamics, cleanly illustrated in the bar fight scene between Mary-Lee’s admirer & Kyle. However, Written on the Wind snowballed into absurdity as the melodrama itself came to dominate. The film continued to entertain mildly although my engagement with the story faded under a blanket of traditional but tiresome melodramatic traits--over-the-top music, characters’ over-reactions and their cartoonish personalities.