All That Heaven Allows - Criterion Collection

Starring:Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorehead, Conrad Nagel, Virginia Grey, Gloria Talbott, William Reynolds, Charles Drake, Hayden Rorke, Jacqueline deWit, Leigh Snowden, Donald Curtis, Alex Gerry, Nestor Paiva, Forrest Lewis, Tol Avery, Merry Anders, Gia Scala, Anthony Jochim, Donna Jo Gribble
Director: Douglas Sirk
Studio: Criterion
Product Type: DVD

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Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman were so successful in Douglas Sirk's Magnificent Obsession that they reteamed for this, his first melodrama masterpiece. Young hunk Rock is a strapping son of mother nature, a gardener who woos middle-aged, middle class widow Wyman to the snooty disapproval of her conservative social circle and embarrassment of her self-centered children. Wyman discovers a new life with his open-armed friends and back-to-nature lifestyle, but struggles with life-changing decisions in the face of social pressure and vicious gossip. Living the Henry Thoreau dream, Rock inhabits his personal Walden in a rustic country cabin by a bubbling brook, a dream house lit by a giant picture window overlooking an idyllic countryside where deer pose just outside the window. Wyman's elegant but sterile suburban home transforms into a tomb when she sacrifices her love for the "good name" of her children, and the lonely widow sees her future in the pale, colorless reflection of her TV screen. But don't despair just yet: Sirk's heroines are dynamic and resourceful and no Sirk melodrama ends without a heart-tugging, over-the-top twist. German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who championed Sirk as a master and a mentor, remade the film as Ali: Fear Eats the Soul decades later. --Sean Axmaker

Description

Jane Wyman is a repressed wealthy widow and Rock Hudson is the hunky Thoreau-following gardener who loves her in Douglas Sirk's heartbreakingly beautiful indictment of 1950s small-town America. Sirk utilizes expressionist colors, reflective surfaces, and frames-within-frames to convey the loneliness and isolation of a matriarch trapped by the snobbery of her children and the gossip of her social-climbing country club chums. Criterion is proud to present this subversive Hollywood tearjerker in a new Special Edition.

Customer Reviews:

Pardon my highly symbolic deer.......2007-06-09

All That Heaven Allows is a melodrama by Douglas Sirk, and I had SO meant to watch a Douglas Sirk film ever since seeing Far From Heaven, so I was happy with my purchase. Turns out I couldn't have done better, as Far From Heaven seems to be almost entirely based on this movie. But we'll get back to that.

The deal here is that Jane Wyman [who most will remember from Falcon Crest], back when she was in her early middle age and quite vulnerable and charming, is Carrie, a widow with a son and daughter [constantly spouting Freud-lite] away at college. She's in one of those picturesque New England towns that has a rigid social order that it's hard for us to imagine now. Everyone expects her to marry Harvey, who it is said right off the bat will NOT want to have sex, and doesn't have more than one drink a night. So Harvey is obviously snoresville, and Jane wants more for her life, and though the movie doesn't outright say it, she is not ready to settle into a sexless existence.

So one day she has a short conversation with Rock Hudson, as Ron, who comes by every now and then to tend to her trees. He says he's super into trees, which she likes [not to mention that he's big, virile, strapping, and Rock Hudson]. The next time he comes over he invites her to join in and his friends at a dinner. She meets all his New England intellectual friends who read Walden [I'd say bolt at that point, but no] and speak Spanish, and there is discussion that Ron is their de facto leader, a man who is so self-confident and centered that they can all only work to be more like him. Carrie, bored to tears with her lifeless suburban existence [symbolized by the TV everyone wants her to get, so she'll "never be alone"], is suitably intrigued.

So soon they're falling into each other's arms [there is some extreme makeover: old mill edition action as well], and you can tell that they're having sex inside because we see a deer bolting across a field. Maybe he saw the copy of Walden. Anyway, NO ONE in Carrie's circle can believe that she's going to marry this GARDENER, and gossip shoots into the red zone. It's a little difficult for a modern audience to really understand what the big problem is, but apparently the pressure to marry within one's socioeconomic group was much bigger then, and much harder to resist. It's also a bit jarring to see Carrie branded as a sexually wanton woman, because the ONLY reason she could possibly like this tree guy is for his body. Even her children turn on her, throwing a fit about her leaving the family home, and her daughter's boyfriend dumps her because her mother is such a loose woman. It's hard for us to believe these people are really THAT superficial, and also that they CARE so much what other people think, but I guess they didn't have SELF Magazine back then.

Anyway, I'll let you discover the rest on your own, should you choose to do so. A lot of it goes exactly as you might expect, though there are a few things that are effective in spite of that [as my friend Dan says: "I like things that are really obvious, yet still WORK"], and I must admit that I was surprised by the ending, which I totally expected to go a different way, but remember, whenever you see a deer, nature and vitality are on the march. You might also keep an eye out for any earthenware you see that may or may not symbolize suburban domesticity.

So, obviously lots of people love this movie, and it is in the Criterion Collection [ahem, Armageddon], and I could admire it, but I didn't have too much of a feeling for it. Maybe it's just that this type of movie just seems way to predictable [though as I said, I was surprised by several things], and the psychology too strange, the characters too weak-minded. So for me, the primary point of interest to this movie was as an adjunct to Far From Heaven.

They share several familiar elements; most notably the love interest of the gardener, who even wears similar clothes [in fact, all the clothes here obviously inspired those in Far From Heaven], the best friend who probably isn't really there for you when the chips are down, the town gossip, the visit to the gardener's greenhouse and a special place where he goes, etc. It goes on and on. But, whereas Far From Heaven took it upon itself to bring all the repressed sexuality and repressive society from the background to the forefront, this movie is really just an expression of its time. It's beautifully made and controlled, but it's just not so much my thing, so for me this movie's primary importance is as an excellent point of contrast with Far From Heaven.

WONDERFUL FANTASTIC AND A CLASSIC.......2007-05-14

ROCK HUDSON AND JANE WYMAN ARE JUST GREAT TOGETHER IN THIS.I LOVE IT .

Still relevant after all these years........2007-05-12

All That Heaven Allows (Douglas Sirk, 1955)

If you get a bunch of assorted critics and film snobs into a room and start them talking about the work of Douglas Sirk, the conversation will eventually devolve into the topic it always does: which of the two films Sirk made that are universally regarded as his best was better, All That Heaven Allows or Imitation of Life? (The debate is generally so close that even in They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?'s survey of 1,360 professional film critics of the thousand best movies of all time, Imitation came in at 244, All that Heaven Allows at 245.) Well, I've now seen both of them, and I have to say I liked Imitation of Life more. But All That Heaven Allows is still a pretty fine movie, both for the stylistic quirks that make it such a critical favorite and for the satire on sanitized fifties life that it presents.

Cary Scott (Jane Wyman) is an upperclass widow whose friends are encouraging her to get out a bit more. They even contrive to get her into the same place as often as possible with the town's most eligible bachelor. Cary, however, finds herself attracted to rough, blue-collar tree farmer Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson), who'd done some gardening work for her. Romance blooms between the older woman and the younger man. While Ron's friends are warm and accepting, Cary's friends-- and her children-- are scandalized.

Sirk is sometimes guilty of making his characters shallower than they should be in order to get his point across more clearly, but at least he recognizes the importance of couching that point in a good story, unlike so many other seemingly-dissident filmmakers, and that makes all the difference. What I find most interesting is that Sirk's pastiche of effects here, most notably the expressionist color scheme and the famous framing shots, put me very much in mind of Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. (Betcha no one's ever made THAT comparison before!) Because of that, I think they may have had less of an effect on me than on most folks seeing the film for the first time; after all, I'm already used to them, and used to them in the capacity of attacking societal mores. But still, the story itself is still solid. A bit melodramatic, but then, Sirk was the King of the Weepies, no? ****

What can one say.......2007-03-13

Magnificent. I have 3 of the Douglas Sirk "spectaculars' just missing Magnificent Obsession.I have longed to own all of his melodramas from the 1950's. (I saw them the first time around) My only criticism is of Rock Hudson, (but I forgive him).Jane Wyman as usual was wonderful. He was always rather wooden, but for all of that I thoroughly enjoyed "All that Heaven Allows". The colour, scenery and story "WOW" real tear making stuff. I did see the Todd Haynes version titled "All This and Heaven Too" preferred the original. All the small mindedness of small towns.....on the whole thought it great, and can recommend it to other "melodramatic" film fans. A great tear jerker!

A perfect film.......2007-02-09

ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS is one of those melodramas that translate so well what life was like in the forties and fifties. Everything in them becomes a comment on this particular time and its social mores. As in almost every Sirk film, we look at a perfect artwork. The directing, the acting, the cinematography, the writing, are all of exceptional quality. Sirk deserves to have his films presented in a sumptuous 10-disc box set, digitally restored and with plenty of extras in each of them.

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