All That Heaven Allows (1955)
Cary, a wealthy widow, falls in love with the much younger nurseryman, Ron Kirby. This provides gossip for the country club set... (imdb)
Cast and Information
Directed By: Douglas Sirk
Written By: Edna L. Lee, Peg Fenwick
Starring: Virginia Grey, Rock Hudson, Jane Wyman, Agnes Moorehead, Conrad Nagel, Charles Drake, Hayden Rorke, Gloria Talbott, Donald Curtis, William Reynolds, Jacqueline deWit, Leigh Snowden
Country: USA
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All That Heaven Allows belongs to 58 collections
1. 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (collaborative: moderated by kozan26 - 232 stars)
2. Criterion Collection (collaborative: moderated by caffe - 165 stars)
3. Features under 91 minutes (collaborative: moderated by epiphany - 56 stars)
4. Martin Scorsese's Film School: The 85 Films You Need to See to Know Anything About Film (collaborative - 43 stars)
5. They Shoot Pictures 1,000 Greatest Films (2008 revision) (collaborative: moderated by Scottathon - 39 stars)
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7. New York Times' The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made (collaborative: moderated by theficionado - 31 stars)
8. National Film Registry (collaborative: moderated by PeaceAnarchy - 30 stars)
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Browse the full list of collections
| Stars | User | Rating | |
| 6 |  |
Danilolopes | 100 98th |
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Just perfect! An absolutely gorgeous melodrama.
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| 5 |  |
MartinTeller | 92 96th |
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Brilliantly conforms to the rules of melodrama while slyly subverting them, beautifully photographed in Technicolor with a keen eye for framing, and quietly but brutally obliterates middle-class notions of what's proper. And it does all this while still being a heartfelt tear-jerker. It's sometimes hard to draw the line between what's corny for the sake of irony and what's genuinely just plain corny, but that's part of the fun of watching it.
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| 5 |  |
BillyShears | 90 92nd |
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Rock Hudson knows A LOT about wood.
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| 3 |  |
djross | 65 70th |
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Some fine moments in a generally well-done melodrama, but some virtues claimed for it (as for Sirk in general) are, perhaps, rather easy virtues, in particular that of irony. The way in which audiences have come to Sirk retrospectively is, in my mind, somewhat suspicious: it is as if there is something about his movies which allows audiences possessing a particular kind of purported cinematic "education" to feel they are in the know. Nevertheless, contains some impressive aspects.
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| 2 |  |
eveelun | 74 55th |
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While gorgeously filmed, I wasn't won over totally by the melodrama. It's not bad melodrama, but it never reaches a high pitch of excitement or social relevance like, say, Almodovar's films do.
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| 2 |  |
Nathan S | 5 93rd |
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Perhaps its subversive sense of irony is obvious and low hanging fruit, but there is much to be said about this film's expressions. It is one of the most gorgeous applications of Technicolor: a splendid composition of light, color, and depth. The conviction of its performances is the evidence of sincerity, and its remarkably frank confrontation of sexuality instills a timely social relevance. It is Sirk's masterpiece, the pristine model of his ability to elevate weepy melodrama into high art.
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| 2 |  |
Monisit | 51 15th |
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The characters are all a bit selfish, couldn't get behind the romance either. It just lead to a very melodramatic experience with very little substance to stand out from the rest. Outside of the photography, it doesn't very lend itself well to the genre.
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| 1 |  |
Alex Watkins | 4 70th |
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Sirk's overblown emotions, symbolism and plot contrivances would be laughable if they didn't cut so deeply. For all its melodramatic twists and turns, All That Heaven Allows manages to be highly effective, working on both a surface level and in its more subversive treatment of 1950s attitudes (sexism, classism, et al). You can really see the influence this had on Fassbinder's Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, from its portrayal of societal trappings down to the gorgeous color photography.
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| 1 |  |
PeaceAnarchy | 83 72nd |
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It's a sappy melodrama, but Sirk has a way of making that enjoyable by poking fun at his characters without going over the top. The oversaturated reds, while jarring at first, really give the movie a unique look.
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| 1 |  |
twincinema | 90 92nd |
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The older I get, the more I realize I love a glorious melodrama. This film is progressive for its time. Was about to get real mad that Hudson dies by falling off the cliff.
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| 1 |  |
Icarus | 90 88th |
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So much of my appreciation for this movie is based on how to take it: straight ahead, it is a beautifully shot but overtly silly love letter to an individualized romantic love that has lost all connection to community and is based only on current feelings. However, if taken ironically, then we have a cautionary tale about the inability of women to be truly empowered in American society, even when they finally make a choice for themselves. I choose to believe the latter, making this outstanding.
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| 1 | DVicknabb | 84 52nd |
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You know, I'm lost on this one, because I don't know where to rate a movie that balances Sirk's incredible eye for photography (especially the vibrant Technicolor) and mind for satire with a wholly grating melodrama plot. One of the best made movies that I've ever found hard to re-watch.
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| 1 | IHateMovies | 80 46th |
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A tough movie for most people to get through, the melodrama is tiresome but the photography and message are beautiful.
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| 1 |  |
JakeAesthete | 62 60th |
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'Drama, comedy, life's parade at your fingertips.' I found it surprising how upfront the social criticism in this was, it hardly even feels like subtext that would have gone unnoticed to viewers of the time. I think you'll find a lot more actual subversion going on in a Tashlin film. But rather than any 'hidden meaning' to be discovered, what really sells this is the impeccable, gorgeous style (those fucking colors!) that clearly influenced everyone from Fassbinder to Almodovar to Kaurismaki.
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| 1 |  |
walkearth | 65 72nd |
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Elegant and beautifully crafted, however the melodrama didn't hit the right notes with me. The film has a bit of a generic foreign TV melodrama feel, but only a tad. The story flows smoothly and with a consistent mellow atmosphere, with actors who evidently try to give it their best. I wasn't overly enthusiastic about Rock Hudson's character falling in love with Jane Wyman's, to be frank - I expected him to be a crook and it felt as a gimmick all the way through to the end. Oh, well.
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| 1 |  |
wetwillies | 85 59th |
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I love how people say melodrama like it's a bad thing, when really it's one of the best things. If all movies looked like Douglas Sirk's Technicolor movies, I would actually be a happy person.
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| 1 |  |
bof | 80 83rd |
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Yes, there are bits that feel overdone, and I miss the grittiness of Fassbinder's version, but I love how the movie LOOKS so completely like any other 50s romance yet feels a lot more honest in its depictions both of the lead couple and of the hypocrisy and close-mindedness of the people around them. It's melodrama, but it's melodrama that wins you over.
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| 1 |  |
lisa- | 2 11th |
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as the ending approached, endless layers of irony and destiny were heaped upon the narrative, but all i could think about was how wrinkly those old mens' faces get when they kiss. douglas sirk makes me want to vomit rainbows.
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| 1 |  |
Yiannos | 73 77th |
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Overpraised by auteurists, All That Heaven Allows is nonetheless an impressive piece of old fashioned Hollywood film making that has more depth than your average melodrama from the same period. The framing is impeccable, and the colours are moody, expressionistic and vivid, detailing the inner lives of the characters and intensifying the drama at crucial moments. While the film is broadly a critique of bourgeois values, it also has the stones to tackle class, which is a big no-no today.
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| 1 |  |
Jimmy Suede | 70 45th |
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Say it with me: "Rich people bad... Nonconformists good..." That said, even though it's heavy-handed it's not a bad movie. I enjoyed the cinematography most, the cool shots and lighting. Our man Ron Kirby, though, only seemed human when Cary (a woman, as opposed to Cary Grant) broke up with him, perturbing his imperturbable rightness. And wow, her son was one of the biggest bastards I've ever seen.
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| Average Percentile 70.54% from 849 Ratings |  |