All That Heaven Allows
| All That Heaven Allows | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Douglas Sirk |
| Produced by | Ross Hunter |
| Screenplay by | Peg Fenwick |
| Story by | Edna Lee Harry Lee |
| Starring |
Jane Wyman Rock Hudson |
| Music by | Frank Skinner |
| Cinematography | Russell Metty |
| Edited by | Frank Gross |
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Production
company |
Universal Pictures
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| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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89 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $3.1 million (US) |
All That Heaven Allows is a 1955 Technicolor drama romance 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.
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.
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. The music which often plays throughout the film is Consolation No.3 in D-flat major by Franz Liszt.
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