Among Sirk’s most self-conscious and artistically ambitious creations, a relentlessly bleak and disturbing work about the erotic attraction of death. Hudson, so self-effacing that he seems to be fading from the screen, is a reporter in 1932 New Orleans who finds himself morbidly and irresistibly drawn to LaVerne (Ms. Malone), a professional parachute jumper who herself is obsessively involved with her husband (Stack), a barnstorming pilot with a pronounced death wish.

When their romance prompts the scorn of her children and country club friends, a widow must decide whether to pursue her own happiness or carry on a lonely, hemmed-in existence for the sake of the approval of others.

One of the most remarkable and unaccountable films ever made in Hollywood, Douglas Sirk’s masterpiece turns a lurid, melodramatic script into a screaming Brechtian essay on the shared impotence of American family and business life.

Cathy Whitaker, a 1950s housewife, lives in wealthy suburban Connecticut as she sees her seemingly perfect life begin to fall apart. It is done in the style of a Douglas Sirk film (especially 1955's All That Heaven Allows and 1959's Imitation of Life), dealing with complex contemporary issues such as race, gender roles, sexual orientation and class.

Lana Turner stars as a young widow and mother who will do anything to realize her dreams of Broadway stardom; her story is intertwined with that of Susan Kohner, the light-skinned daughter of Turner’s black maid, who is tempted to pass for white. By emphasizing brilliant surfaces, bold colors, and the spatial complexities of 50s moderne architecture, Sirk creates a world of illusion, entrapment, and emotional desperation.