Three years ago, Todd Haynes' acclaimed FAR FROM HEAVEN brought us porcelain Julianne Moore as a 1950s suburban housewife whose just-so coiffure and matte-red lips masked inner agony. In part, Haynes' film was paying tribute to Douglas Sirk, the German- born director whose work throughout the 1950s has become the benchmark for screen melodrama. Always a flashpoint for critics, Sirk's films vibrate with weepy, over-the-top "women's picture" style, all the while serving up subversive comments on American conformity and materialism. To fully enjoy Sirk is to revel in the lavish color, pointed shadows, campy dialogue and moralist tone. AFI presents six of Sirk's 1950s efforts, including archetypal classics like IMITATION OF LIFE and a few lesser-known gems. Don't miss these time capsules in all of their big-screen glory.

THE TARNISHED ANGELS

In Depression-era New Orleans, reporter Rock Hudson looks on as war ace and stunt pilot Robert Stack, backed by parachutist wife Dorothy Malone and faithful mechanic Jack Carson, flirts with flying and death. No trashy source here: the film is adapted from William Faulkner's Pylon, which Sirk had dreamed of filming since the 1930s.

DIR Douglas Sirk; SCR William Faulkner and George Zuckerman, from the novel by Faulkner; PROD Albert Zugsmith. US, 1958, b&w, scope, 91 min. UNRATED

MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION

Brace yourself. Rock Hudson quits his reckless playboy lifestyle after a boating accident fatally injures a saintly doctor and blinds the doctor's wife, Jane Wyman. Aiming to redeem himself, Hudson enrolls in medical school to learn the surgery that could restore Wyman's sight-- all the while courting the blind widow under a secret identity. A box-office hit and the first pairing of an unlikely romantic duo in 30-year-old Hudson and 40-something Wyman.

DIR Douglas Sirk; SCR Robert Blees, from a novel by Lloyd C. Douglas; PROD: Ross Hunter. US, 1954, color, 108 min. RATED APPROVED

WRITTEN ON THE WIND

Sirk called this one "social criticism of the rich and the spoiled and the American family." A Texas oil clan competes for the love of stable, employee Rock Hudson. With Robert Stack as the dysfunctional son whose taste for the sauce is fueled by his possible sterility, Lauren Bacall as Stack's long-suffering bride and Dorothy Malone as the unforgettably over-sexed heiress to the family fortune.

DIR Douglas Sirk; SCR George Zuckerman, from a novel by Robert Wilder; PROD Albert Zugsmith. US, 1956, color, 99 min. UNRATED

IMITATION OF LIFE

Lana Turner is a young widow chasing dreams of Broadway stardom while her stoic African-American housekeeper (Juanita Moore) rears Turner's daughter (Sandra Dee) alongside her very own "lightskinned" child (Susan Kohner)-- whose desire to "pass" as white leads her to move to the big city, abandoning values and eventually her mother. The film was a careerboost for Turner, coming off her daughter's high-profile trial for fatally stabbing the actress' mobster boyfriend. Amidst a flurry of fabulous wardrobe changes, Sirk remarks on America's investment in racial separateness and the sacrifice of the dutiful woman.

DIR Douglas Sirk; SCR Eleanore Griffen and Allan Scott from a novel by Fannie Hurst; PROD Ross Hunter. US, 1959, color, 125 min. RATED APPROVED

THERE'S ALWAYS TOMORROW

What can you say about a middleaged man who makes toys? Fred MacMurray plays husband and father to a picturesque American family. But as always in Sirk's world, all is not as it seems. Feeling ignored by wife Joan Bennett and their children, MacMurray takes to the companionship of old flame Barbara Stanwyck. Could there finally be a happy ending for the couple?

DIR Douglas Sirk; SCR Bernard C. Schoenfeld, from a novel by Ursula Parrott; PROD Ross Hunter. US, 1956, b&w, 84 min. UNRATED

ALL I DESIRE

Barbara Stanwyck, in a role that Sirk called a "pre-study of the 'actress' in IMITATION OF LIFE," plays a woman who abandoned her husband and child to pursue a career on stage. Ten years later she returns home at the request of her daughter, who's performing--of course--in a school play. Without Sirk's signature Technicolor, but fraught with emotionalism and suburban scandal.

DIR Douglas Sirk; SCR Robert Blees, from a novel by Carol Brink; PROD Ross Hunter. US, 1953, b&w, 79 min. RATED APPROVED