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All That Heaven Allows

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All That Heaven Allows
File:ATHA01.jpg
Film poster by Reynold Brown
Directed byDouglas Sirk
Written byStory:
Edna Lee
Harry Lee
Screenplay:
Peg Fenwick
Produced byRoss Hunter
StarringJane Wyman
Rock Hudson
CinematographyRussell Metty
Edited byFrank Gross
Music byFrank Skinner
Distributed byUniversal-International
Release dates
  • August 25, 1955 (1955-08-25) (United Kingdom)
  • December 25, 1955 (1955-12-25) (United States)
Running time
89 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$3.1 million (US)[1]

All That Heaven Allows is a 1955 romance feature film starring Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson in a tale about a well-to-do widow and a younger landscape designer falling in love. The screenplay was written by Peg Fenwick based upon a story by Edna L. Lee and Harry Lee. The film was directed by Douglas Sirk and produced by Ross Hunter.

In 1995, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Plot

Cary Scott (Jane Wyman) is an affluent widow in suburban New England, whose social life involves her country club peers, college-age children, and a few men vying for her affection.

She becomes interested in Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson), her gardener, an intelligent, down-to-earth and respectful yet passionate younger man. Ron is content with his simple life outside the materialistic society and the two fall in love. Ron introduces her to people who seem to have no need for wealth and status and she responds positively. Cary accepts his proposal of marriage, but becomes distressed when her friends and college-age children are angry. They look down upon Ron and his friends and reject their mother for this socially unacceptable arrangement. Eventually, bowing to this pressure, she breaks off the engagement.

Cary and Ron continue their separate lives, both with many regrets, but Cary's children soon announce they are moving out. Having destroyed her chance at happiness, her son buys her a television set to keep her company. Before doing so, however, her daughter apologizes to her mother for her prior impulsive and foolish reaction to Ron, saying that there is still time if she really does love Ron. Cary's doctor points out that Cary is now lonelier than she was before meeting Ron.

When Ron has a life-threatening accident, Cary realizes how wrong she had been to allow other people's opinions and superficial social conventions to dictate her life choices and decides to accept the life Ron offers her. As he recovers, Cary is by his bedside telling him that she has come home.

Cast

Production

Universal-International Pictures wanted to follow up on the pairing of Wyman and Hudson from Douglas Sirk's Magnificent Obsession (1954). Sirk found the screenplay for All That Heaven Allows "rather impossible" but was able to restructure it and use the big budget to film and edit the work exactly the way he wanted.[2] The music which often plays throughout the film is Consolation No.3 in D-flat major by Franz Liszt.[3]

Wyman was only 38 when she played the film's 'older woman' who scandalizes society and her grown-up children by becoming engaged to a younger man. Hudson, 'the younger man', was 30 at the time.

Reception

All That Heaven Allows received positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 93% based on 28 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10.[4]

Awards and honors

In 1995, All That Heaven Allows was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[5]

References in other films

All That Heaven Allows inspired Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)[6] in which a mature woman falls in love with an Arab man. The Sirk film was spoofed by John Waters with his 1981 film Polyester. Todd Haynes' Far from Heaven (2002) is an homage to Sirk's work, in particular All That Heaven Allows and Imitation of Life. François Ozon's 8 Femmes featured the winter scenes and the deer from the film.

See also

References

  1. ^ 'The Top Box-Office Hits of 1956', Variety Weekly, January 2, 1957
  2. ^ Laura Mulvey (18 June 2001). "All That Heaven Allows". Film Essays. The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 2 November 2012.
  3. ^ "All That Heaven Allows". TCM. Retrieved 25 May 2014.
  4. ^ Rotten Tomatoes
  5. ^ "National Film Registry". Library of Congress, accessed October 28, 2011.
  6. ^ "All That Heaven Allows". Chicago Reader. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
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