Dirtied by soap, melodrama is cinema's grubby urchin. As it presses its vulgar face against the window of acceptance in a stereotypically sentimental manner, right-minded people look away. Conditioned into a state of disgust by thousands of hours of EastEnders and Neighbours, they have no time for this sullied genre.

So what's the big deal about the DVD release of There's Always Tomorrow, a 1956 film by melodrama maestro Douglas Sirk? What makes this story of toy manufacturer Clifford Groves (played by Fred MacMurray) and his friendship with former colleague Norma (Barbara Stanwyck) more than a monochrome 81-minute soap opera? Why get more excited about this than cockney kerfuffles in Albert Square or Aussie antics in Erinsborough?

First, there's the outsider direction of Sirk himself. Born in Germany to Danish parents, he fled from the Nazis in the late 1930s and found work in Hollywood. He subsequently cast his cynical, émigré gaze on the American Dream and revealed its societal constraints – perhaps never more effectively than in There's Always Tomorrow. Clifford is successful in his work, he has a wife Marion (Joan Bennett), three children and a lovely Californian home, but he feels disenfranchised by his family. Their indifference to him is an affront to his masculinity, so when glamorous, worldly Norma looks him up after several years he's seduced by his more exciting past. He yearns for a life untrammeled by domesticity and fashion designer Norma seems to offer an escape.

It's a similar theme to Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road, but it's so much more skilfully explored by Sirk. Every little detail in the film – from the donning of an emasculating apron to the barely perceptible movement of a toy robot – has a significance. He's constantly opening cans of worms and letting them wriggle and twitch their way across the screen. Directors as diverse as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, David Lynch and Todd Haynes have clearly been influenced by Sirk's example and they won't be the last.

Then there's the pairing of Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck, sharing a screen for the first time since 1944's Double Indemnity. In Billy Wilder's noir masterpiece MacMurray played what Sirk might refer to as an überdope, suckerpunched by Stanwyck's schemes into committing murder. In There's Always Tomorrow he's the one beating himself up - not captivated by a sensually-worn ankle bracelet as he was in Double Indemnity, but by yet another mythical dream existence. There are sly echoes of the earlier film and both leads play their roles to perfection. Sadly, it was the final time they ever worked together.

And there's the noir-inflected cinematography of Russell Metty, who shot Orson Welles' Touch Of Evil a couple of years later (the final nail in the coffin of noir's classic era). Metty is better known for his vibrant colour work, but here he makes great play with shadows to eke out meaning from seemingly mundane moments. Those are his shadows that Clifford's vile, voyeuristic children skulk and sulk in.

Eureka's Masters Of Cinema Series was recently awarded Label Of The Year. With releases like this one, they'll be difficult to beat next year, too.

There's Always Tomorrow (Eureka! The Masters Of Cinema Series) is out now on DVD.

Colin Houlson