#95: SIRK, Douglas: All That Heaven Allows (1955)

SIRK, Douglas (United States)

All That Heaven Allows [1955]

Spine #95
DVD

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 1950's 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.

89 minutes
Color

Monaural

1:77:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2001

Director/Writers

Based on the story by Edna L. Lee and Harry Lee.

Screenplay by Peg Fenwick.

Douglas Sirk was 58 when he directed All That Heaven Allows.

Other Sirk films in the Collection:

#457: Magnificent Obsession (1954)
#96: Written On The Wind (1956)

The Film

A key to understanding the latter-day reappraisal of Sirk’s work can be found in Fassbinder’s 1974 film, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul {Spine #198} — more or less a remake of this film …

Ignored at the time of its release in 1955, All That Heaven Allows is a brilliant dig at the postwar consumerist society that was the U.S.A. in the mid-50s. A middle-class widow, Cary Scott (Jane Wyman) falls in love with the iconoclastic Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson) and the melodrama begins. Cary’s best friend, Sarah (a luminous Agnes Moorehead) does her best to understand her friend’s dilemma, but it is Cary’s own children, Kay (Gloria Talbot) and Ned (William Reynolds) who give her the hardest time.

Sirk’s cinema is soaked in either neon auburn and brown (fall) or icy blue and white (winter). The interiors also reflect the outdoor color schemes.

In an early scene, Ron is seen tenderly feeding a deer. Sirk neatly skirts the Production Code with the a quick shot of the deer running, just before we see Ron and Cary cozy in each other’s arms. The deer shows up again in the final scene — a nice symbolic affirmation of their love.

The music — Liszt, Brahms and Schumann — gives the (melo)drama a decisive push.

A good film, not particularly great.

Film Rating (0-60):

55

The Extras

The Booklet

Six-page wraparound featuring an essay by Laura Mulvey.

“Sirk once said: ‘this is the dialectic — there is a very short distance between high art and trash, and trash that contains an element of craziness is by this very quality nearer to art.’ When All That Heaven Allows was released by Universal Studios in 1955 it was just another critically unnoticed Hollywood genre product designed to appeal to the trashy ‘women’s weepie’ audience. Now, in retrospect, it is considered to be closer to the art side of Sirk’s ‘dialectic’ and one of his key films. But this is part of a wider process of critical re-evaluation, in which his entire body of work has been rediscovered and reappraised by successive generations of filmmakers and historians.”

Commentary

None.

Excerpts

Behind the Mirror: A Profile of Douglas Sirk, a 1979 BBC documentary featuring rare interview footage with the director.

Excellent interview with the 79-year-old director touching on all aspects of his life and career.

Imitation of Life: On the Films of Douglas Sirk

An illustrated essay by filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

An introduction, a conclusion, and quick takes on six films in between, from a passionate fellow filmmaker:

1. This one
2. Written on the Wind (1956) {Spine #96}
3. Interlude (1957)
4. The Tarnished Angels (1957)
5. A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958)
6. Imitation of Life (1959)

Collection

Of vintage lobby cards and production stills.

Original theatrical trailer

Extras Rating (0-40):

34

55 + 34 =

89

By Director
By Spine #