DVD Review: All That Heaven Allows (B-)

All That Heaven Allows (1955)
Directed by Douglas Sirk
Starring Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Conrad Nagel and Agnes Moorehead
MPAA: UR
Grade: B-

Review by Scott Standish

Fans of Douglas Sirk will be impressed with All That Heaven Allows, another voyeuristic peek into the overly dramatic lives of America's rich and fabulous. Lushly photographed and composed, the film has the signature look of the soap opera style director's best work.

Jane Wyman (Ronald Reagan's ex) stars as Cary Scott, a widow that lives a quiet life in her massive New England home. She attends all of the high society functions of her town and is respected in the community. Things quickly fall apart when she falls for the young gardener Ron Kirby, played by Rock Hudson. Cary's children expected her to marry the older, stodgier Harvey. Cary's society friends gossip that she must have been having an affair with the gardener even before her husband passed. All are quick to mock the free spirited young gardener as a gold digger.

Cary loves her family but they angrily turn on her when the chips are down. Cary's daughter Kay (lovely horror film veteran Gloria Talbott) constantly publicizes her intellectual standards yet in the end, jumps at the opportunity to marry into a society life similar to her mom's. Cary's son Ned is a slimy, self absorbed white collar criminal in waiting. He finds the young Ron to be way below his mothers class level. Cary's "forbidden love" becomes all the more unbearable as she is forced to choose between the man she loves and her family.

The acting is insanely melodramatic but it still does not approach the intensity of Sirk's hell-raising cult classic Written On The Wind. Although I've never been a huge Jane Wyman fan she does an adequate job here of portraying the emotions of a woman torn between love and peer pressure. Rock Hudson is way too old for the role of the young stud gardener (he's 30 and she's 38) but he makes up for this with his overly forward advances.

All That Heaven Allows plays like a romance novel with it's splashy Technicolor style and its tortured angst. For those with a low tolerance for sugar this is probably one to avoid. But if you are a fan of Douglas Sirk, or like stories that explore the tensions between freedom and societal conventions, then All That Heaven Allows is definitely an entertaining way to spend 90 minutes.

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