Douglas Sirk is best known for his melodramas, the string of masterworks made at Universal in the 1950s - All I Desire (1953), Magnificent Obsession (1953), All That Heaven Allows (1955), There's Always Tomorrow (1955), Written On The Wind (1956), The Tarnished Angels (1957), and Imitation Of Life (1958). We have shown these classics fairly often at PFA, but have neglected, as have most critics until recently, his earlier films for Universal, which are lighter in subject matter but no less graceful in mise-en-scene. Andrew Sarris has recently noted of Has Anybody Seen My Gal: “Sirk elevated Universal's most conventional projects to a plateau of stylistic accomplishment, a plateau which he alone inhabited. His style did not merely transcend his genres: it released their mythological essence. Even in this sit-com of a middleclass family that is altered by an inheritance, Sirk manages to celebrate the simple virtues without smirking at them.”