MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Dalbert Pringle OK - Was "All That Heaven Allows" melodramatic? - Yes. Indeed. It was. And, was it corny-corny-corny? - Most definitely. And, was it clichéd to the max? - Yep. Right over the top.And, yet, regardless of all of the above - Was "All That Heaven Allows" worth a view? Yep. That it was. In fact, it actually could be worth a second viewing, too. (If, of course, you're in the right frame of mind)1955's "All That Heaven Allows" was a lush, Technicolor, Ross Hunter/Douglas Sirk production that (believe it, or not) actually made "humdrum" seem somehow interesting.I don't know exactly what it is about this particular "suburban-life" soap opera that sets it apart from the rest of the junk - But, it certainly did manage to hold my attention for most of its 90-minute running time.*Note* - This film certainly did contain its fair share of unintentionally laughable dialogue and situations, especially when it came to widow Cary Scott's interaction with her 2 snot-nosed, college-age children.

SnoopyStyle Cary Scott (Jane Wyman) is an affluent widow with two grown children. They still come home for the weekends but she lives an empty live. Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson) is her arborist who runs his father's nursery. Cary and the younger Ron grow closer and he proposes to her. She's scared but she eventually accepts. She becomes gossip material. Then everybody else objects especially her kids. She sacrifices her happiness for them. She gets even more lonely and heart broken. Is it too late for her to find love? This is generally an old fashion romance except for the age difference and the expectation on the woman widower. The romance is pretty good with Wyman and Hudson although it does get very melodramatic at the end. The romance challenges the social morals of the conservative norms. The tension is quite good especially with her kids. Her facing her social expectations are some of the best scenes in the movie.

Ross622 Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows is a very well done romantic movie that tells the story about a woman named Cary (played by Jane Wyman) who falls in love with a much younger man named Ron Kirby (played by Rock Hudson) with a chorus of disapproval by her friends, as well as her children because they don't think it is right to move away from a house that they have lived in for many years, mainly because of their age difference. The movie in my opinion is one of the best romance movies ever made, especially the performances by Wyman and Hudson are very convincing. Sirk really does know how to execute a wonderful romance movie like this one but it is certainly not the best to put it that way.The movie also features an excellent supporting cast which includes Agnes Moorehead as Cary's best friend Sara who is very skeptical about the marriage at first but then says it is up to Cary to decide for herself, Gloria Talbot and William Reynolds as Cary's two children who disapprove of the marriage the most even more than Cary's peers combined. But in the end it is till a great movie that should be watched, treasured, and never forgotten by all movie lovers.

funkyfry Director Douglas Sirk takes a story by the obscure writing team of Edna and Harry Lee, puts it together with two big stars in Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson, and emerges with a first-rate critique of the class prejudices and soul-crushing expectations in Country Club America. There aren't many surprises along the way, really, but the thing doesn't just sit there either.... if we, the audience, are allowed to come up for air, then we would lose some of our identification with the superficially "unimportant" tribulations of the heroine, Cary (Wyman). As for Hudson's character (Ron), he doesn't just read, but lives, Thoreau... yes, a character in the movie actually says that. Let's not pretend the movie is any more subtle than any of Sirk's other work.We could pick it apart for all its "unreality", but in my opinion the film was never designed to be real. It's a sort of expressionist take on American culture, one which Sirk would follow up with even more broad strokes on the subject in following years. I do think that the film's discussion on class division would have more weight if, for example, Ron's supposedly rustic hideaway didn't look like something out of Woman's Home Companion's winter guidebook. The Ron Kirby character is a bit too far out of the realm of reality, perhaps because his persona had to be twisted in such a way to make him totally acceptable to the types of people in the audience who might, in their day to day lives, represent the characters in the film who reject him on social grounds. So, it's all very harmless, and when we meet Ron's working class friends they come complete with the friendly Greek fisherman, bird-watching old lady, etc. One wonders what the effect would have been, for example, if one of Marlon Brando's early 50s characters had walked through the door.But again, let's never mind "reality", and let Sirk have his own little pretensions. My main real criticism along those lines is that the film did not show any kind of social pressure coming from Ron's friends against his settling with Cary. Indeed, Ron's best friends (played by Virginia Grey and William Reynolds) are practically gurus of philosophy and tolerance. In actuality, it is not just the rich who perpetuate class division in America. Not to mention, the fact that she was obviously approaching 40 and already had children would have made her an unacceptable wife to many of his young friends, or so we might imagine. The film steers clear of any such criticism and as a result it's take on class (and age-ism) in America is lop-sided.The most cunning and memorable shot in the film is, of course, the one with the TV set turned into a mirror of Cary's loneliness, after she has succumbed to social/family pressure and ended her relationship with Ron. It deserves praise, but Sirk does not just fashion memorable images, but convincing scenes: often, from the most conventional and predictable situations. For example, the big party thrown by Cary's friend Sara (a fire-redhead Agnes Moorehead) -- everything about the scene is already known to the audience; we've seen it in a dozen films. What makes this one memorable is the depth of sleaze to which Donald Curtis' character descends, and his drunken self-conviction. Cary was a tramp all along, he figures, and it's his male prerogative to assume that he can now take her whenever he pleases. As Ron and Cary leave, we hear a voice from amongst the crowd telling us that poor Harvey (Curtis) was fortunate to survive an encounter with such a beast as Ron! It's a better film than it deserves to be, and credit can go to a very solid cast being directed with purpose and intelligence by Sirk.