Agreed, on all points. I loved her performance in Pollyanna, too. Another of my guilty pleasures from a more innocent (and better) Hollywood.

@rudely_murray said:

This is not one of the very finest of Douglas Sirk's great '50s melodramas, and Rock Hudson is borderline wooden as the leading man. But Jane Wyman is sublime here, effortlessly overcoming the (deliberately) ridiculous plot to give a moving, dignified performance that carries the film. She's arguably even better in All That Heaven Allows the following year, but this is a great performance on its own terms. The film is gorgeously shot, as you would expect from Sirk, and it's hard not to shed a tear by the end.

Right, Miss Wyman happily falls into that category of "Performers Who Improve with Age" like Lucille Ball or Joan Van Ark. By the time when they reach their great television fame, you can really tell that those three really paid their dues by acting in films.

Well Miss Dunne delivers an outstanding performance in her original Magnificent Obsession turn, around 1935. Irene portrays a very saintly and sensitive Helen Phillips as compared to Jane's much more self-involved, strict, stuffy, no-nonsense Librarian types, which she's very good at by now, but Jane has good reason to act haughty after what Rock does.

Barbara Rush also adds much class to the value of this adaptation, as she, well, you can just tell how well she's improving in her delivery, as well.

So when you see Jane, Joan or Lucy before they reach their well-deserved television fame with perfection, or Barbara, for that matter, then that just goes to show how performances like this ought to be remembered as good attempts to overcome inferior material on their way to better days ahead stealing the show on noteworthy television series.

Irene wouldn't have done that, but she was certainly the major draw even with Robert Taylor as co-star.