Douglas Sirk was a German émigré director who was widely celebrated for his melodramas produced for Universal Studios during the 1950s, which inspired generations of critics and filmmakers. In his commercially successful and critical acclaimed works such as Magnificent Obsession (1954), All That Heaven Allows (1955), and Written on the Wind (1957), Sirk reinvented American suburbia as a perfect dramatic setting in which individuals struggled against bourgeois norms and invasive modern technology. Sirk’s films are the hallmark for Hollywood melodramas in which thematic use of music, colour, and costumes propel the drama to a boiling point.