Rent All That Heaven Allows (1955)
3.8 of 5 from 118 ratings
1h 25min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
Soon after the huge success of 'Magnificent Obsession', Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson again teamed up with director Douglas Sirk for this heartwarming story of an attractive, wealthy New England widow who defies social constraints when she falls in love for a much younger man.When Cary Scott (Jane Wyman) falls in love with her sexy gardener, Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson), she becomes the target of small town gossip, while at the time incurring the wrath of her own children Kay (Gloria Talbott) and Ned (William Reynolds). The children and the town want Cary to lead a more conventional lifestyle than that offered by Ron. They would prefer that she spend the rest of her life in front of her new TV set, wed to Harvey (Conrad Nagel), a highly respected, wealthy - and boring - bachelor. Will she choose love or "respectability"? - Actors:
- 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, Helen Andrews, Eleanor Audley, Lillian Culver
- Directors:
- Douglas Sirk
- Producers:
- Ross Hunter
- Writers:
- Peg Fenwick, Edna L. Lee, Harry Lee
- Aka:
- Sve što nebo dopušta
- Studio:
- Universal Pictures
- Genres:
- Classics, Drama, Romance
- Collections:
- 12 Films of Christmas Past, Award Winners, Cinema Paradiso's 2025 Centenary Club: October - December: Part 2, Holidays Film Collection, The Biggest Oscar Snubs: Part 1, A Brief History of Film..., The Instant Expert's Guide, The Instant Expert's Guide to François Ozon, The Instant Expert's Guide to Terence Davies, The Instant Expert's Guide to Todd Haynes, The Instant Expert's Guide to: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Top 10 Autumn Films, Top Films
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 13/03/2023
- Run Time:
- 89 minutes
- Languages:
- English Mono
- Subtitles:
- English Hard of Hearing
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 1.75:1
- Colour:
- Colour
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Audio commentary featuring film scholars John Mercer and Tamar Jeffers-McDonald
- Rock Hudson's Home Movies (1992), a groundbreaking essay film about the actor by Mark Rappaport
- French television interview with director Douglas Sirk from 1982
- Excerpts from Behind the Mirror: A Profile of Douglas Sirk, a 1979 BBC documentary featuring rare interview footage with the director
- Contract Kid: William Reynolds on Douglas Sirk, a 2007 interview with the actor, who costarred in three Sirk films, including 'All That Heaven Allows'
- Trailer
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Reviews (2) of All That Heaven Allows
An Offer of Coffee - All That Heaven Allows review by CH
Rock Hudson was a good actor. Such was his life and fabled collaboration with Doris Day that one can forget that he showed up to good effect is several Fifties works by Douglas Sirk, such as this one in which, as a tree expert, he plays a gamekeeper to Jane Wyman's small-town Lady Chatterley. Her husband is dead rather than crippled, an academic distinction when it comes to the town's tongues.
It is worth pointing out that a part is accorded to an off-stage television salesman - and the eventual arrival of his product. Some might say that this film is a kindred spirit of those soaps which filled it day after day. That is to miss the point. Sirk uses the soap conventions to subvert the very world which gave rise to them.
This is close to a masterpiece.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Heaven Delayed (spoiler) - All That Heaven Allows review by Steve
Not my personal favourite of the classic melodramas Douglas Sirk directed at Universal studios in the 1950s, but probably the most critically admired. And it's the one which made the heaviest cultural impact. Jane Wyman plays a wealthy widow who falls in love with the young free-spirited hunk (Rock Hudson) who tends to her garden...
Meanwhile her two awful children and the wealthy country club conformists try to wreck their relationship, mainly for reasons of class. It reunites the stars of Sirk's massive 1954 hit, The Magnificent Obsession, and once again struggles to insert a rather superfluous philosophy; this time related to American transcendentalism!
Though Sirk is clearly more interested in the iniquities of US capitalism, and the audience in the glossy romance between the two stars. But there are two main potential drawbacks: it's a wish-fulfilment fantasy about a woman of a certain age who gets another go around with... Rock Hudson. And sure, what that means is now ambiguous...
But not everyone will identify! Secondly, this might climax unforgettably with the haunting reflection of Wyman in a tv screen as she is confronted with the loveless future the small town conservatism demands. But the studio insisted on a Hollywood ending! Still it's a key Sirk melodrama with the usual superior production polish.
0 out of 0 members found this review helpful.