This film provided Sirk""s clear commentary and critique of the underlying hollowness and shallowness of American society in the placid 1950s, and misfit lives stunted and corrupted by mental anguish, alcoholism, sexual frustration, and corruptible materialistic wealth.With some visionary foresight, Hunk convinced Vince to participate in the show: "You know, I got a spot for you in the show.[Nineteen year old, James Dean-fixated Starkweather was joined by his fourteen year-old girlfriend during heir nine-day flight.The wind blew the dying leaves from trees.The driver was drunken son Kyle Hadley (Robert Stack) returning from a wrong-side-of-town bar to his white-columned mansion estate.