MovieChat Forums > Written on the Wind (1956) Discussion > a question about the name 'Mitch Wayne'

a question about the name 'Mitch Wayne'

posted 18 years ago by timboytx
12 replies | jump to latest

Roger Ebert has a review of this film on his list of "great movies", at his website. When he mentions the name of Rock Hudson's character, he writes, in parentheses: "think about that name". I've pondered that statement for awhile now and can't be sure I know what Ebert means by it. Any ideas? I'm wondering if he's just using the name as an example of the movie's artifice, which he talks about at length. On the other hand, he seems to suggest there's an inside joke there that I'm just not getting.

Here's an excerpt from the review which includes that statement:

"To appreciate a film like ``Written on the Wind'' probably takes more sophistication than to understand one of Ingmar Bergman's masterpieces, because Bergman's themes are visible and underlined, while with Sirk the style conceals the message. His interiors are wildly over the top, and his exteriors are phony--he wants you to notice the artifice, to see that he's not using realism but an exaggerated Hollywood studio style. The Manhattan skyline in an early scene is obviously a painted backdrop. The rear-projected traffic uses cars that are 10 years too old. The swimming hole at the river, where the characters make youthful promises they later regret, is obviously a tank on a sound stage with fake scenery behind it.

The actors are as artificial as the settings. They look like Photoplay covers, and speak in the cliches of pulp romance. Sirk did not cast his films by accident, and one of the pleasures of ``Written on the Wind'' is the way he exaggerates the natural qualities of his actors and then uses them ironically.

The film stars Rock Hudson as Mitch Wayne (think about that name), who grew up poor on the Texas ranch owned by oil millionaire Jasper Hadley (Robert Keith). He's been raised with Jasper's son Kyle (Robert Stack) and daughter Marylee (Dorothy Malone). Now Mitch holds an important post in the Hadley Oil empire, which requires him to wear a baseball cap and keep a yellow pencil parked over his ear, while studying geological maps. Kyle has turned into a drunken playboy, and Marylee into a drunken nympho."

[–] aikijordan 18 years ago

It kinda reminded me of "Bruce Wayne", Batman's wealthy playboy alter-ego

[–] veganeskimo 18 years ago

It puzzles me too.

No, I'm not really vegan. Stop asking.

[–] salieri125 17 years ago

Well then let's open up the forum for wild theories:

"Mitch Wayne" sounds almost like a combo of two of the manliest actors then or now: Robert Mitchum and John Wayne. It's an absurdly manly, rugged kind of name, but the character isn't really any of that. He's actually a little bit of a sissy, acting in an overly restrained manner throughout when you sometimes wish he would just grab Lauren Bacall and kiss her. He's almost totally demasculated and not at all in keeping with the kind of soap hero he's supposed to be. Kyle Hadley also feels unmanly and so he employs the Hemingway Defense: he drinks. Marylee, meanwhile, acts the slut in order to make up for a lack of feminine qualities (and it's not like she can act too masculine in a male-run world), or, I should say, a *perceived* lack of feminine qualities brought about by the fact that Mitch (man's man) ignores her advances as best he can.

[takes a breath]

So, this is a film about sexual roles in fake Hollywoodland melodrama, tempered with a serious amount of irony. The names go along with that.

Just an interpretation. Who else wants a shot?

"We must not remind them that giants walk the earth."

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] nyxzt 16 years ago

I was puzzled when I read the review too. Your explanation makes a lot of sense, I think. The only thing I could think of at the time was that it sort of sounds like two short first names attached together, which gives it a sense of being fake.

Some velvet morning when I'm straight...

[–] no_side2@hotmail.com 16 years ago

Someone oughto write a letter to Mr. Ebert so we can find the answer to this jarring question he put upon us before it's too late!... (I mean while Mr. Ebert is able to answer considering his current condition)...

[–] onepotato2 16 years ago

Meanwhile... back at stately Wayne Manor.

[–] mac_alain 15 years ago

Mitch Wayne? Hmmm... sounds like a porn star. But then think of the names of some of the actors, Robert Stack, Rock Hudson, Dorothy Mallone?

As the film is based on a book, I assume that the names in the film come from it.

[–] Harold_Robbins 13 years ago

"As the film is based on a book, I assume that the names in the film come from it."

Actually, all of the characters' names were different in the novel, as well as many of the dramatics in which they engage. The film jettisoned much of the novel, and ends quite differently. Its possible that Universal feared a lawsuit by Libby Holman or the R.J. Reynolds family (the book had been in development as a film since the late 1940s)

"In my case, self-absorption is completely justified."

[–] hobnob53 13 years ago

Since the names were changed from the novel, I agree with the poster who said that "Mitch Wayne" sounds like a combination of Robert Mitchum and John Wayne. This would have been in keeping with the desire to give Rock Hudson's character a "macho" name, to contrast him with Stack's character's "weakness".

The irony of course is that "Rock Hudson" was an equally fake name.

An amusing side to this question is that the same year (1956), schlock director Jerry Warren's film Man Beast claimed a starring role for "Rock Madison", an "actor" who turned out to be a non-existent person: not the fake name of the leading actor, but a name that refers to nobody whatsoever. Warren just thought it would look good on the movie poster. That name, obviously, was derived from an oh-so-clever combination of Rock Hudson and Guy Madison.

By the way, the Roger Ebert article the OP quotes says the rear projection backdrops show cars at least ten years too old for the scene. The cars I saw were all pretty contemporary for 1956. Ebert's wrong.

[–] thilo-950-73752 12 years ago

John Wayne's given name was Marion Mitchell Morrison.
It was widely seen as ironic that the manliest of all stars had a girl's first name. Douglas Sirk probably wanted to make fun of the Rick Hudson character's machismo by naming him after John Wayne. But he did it subtly by using the middle name. Everybody in Hollywood would get the joke because they all knew Wayne's real name as well as they knew about Hudson's homosexuality.

[–] LikeAParasite 12 years ago

I thought the intrigue of the name was the fact that it sounds like a kind of bland and generic name for a man. This could be intentional since (as Ebert points out) Sirk seems to purposely cast and direct his actors to be artificial like the scenery, giving the film an ironic edge. The soap opera-like events are appropriately centered around characters who are deliberately, amusingly cliché.

I noticed that someone mentioned the similarity of Hudson's name in this movie to 'Bruce Wayne'. Even before I noticed the name, I couldn't help but imagine what a great Bruce Wayne/Batman Rock Hudson would have been if Hollywood made Batman movies back in the '50s.

I also agree with the person who said Hudson was a bit of a wuss in this movie, but at the same time, I think he was good at playing both sensitive and tough as well. In "Written on the Wind", he's almost always very dignified, restrained, and confident, but he can also emote, and he does some convincing beat downs! Again, this reminds me of Bruce Wayne and Batman.

"It's not how long you wait, it's who you're waiting for!"

- "Some Like It Hot", 1959