ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS (1955) **1/2 The reason that the most interior circles of bourgeois society have to be a closed shop is because absolutely anyone else is fascinating by comparison. Even Agnes Moorehead can't figure out how to be interesting in the midst of this lot. Widow Jane Wyman gets a date with a guy who drinks a thimble full of Martini at her house, then heads off to a cocktail party where he gregariously announces that he's had his quota. Repeatedly. In real life, of course, Jane had recently been married to Ronald Reagan, so any gardener would have no doubt looked like a dream. It's her lucky day, because her gardener is Rock Hudson! Shot in profile from lower stage left, in accordance with Rockene tradition. Rock attends parties where Jane's given drinks that look like they're about finished, but I think she's allowed to have as many as she wants. Douglas Sirk's film is unquestionably very ambitious for the time, relentlessly attacking the suffocating cultural conformity of the day (and frankly things haven't changed enough), and shamelessly playing any card he can find, including the morality card, in urging his audience to get their heads out of their asses. Jane's ok, but Rock shows flashes of Elvis, James Dean, and Johnny Cash. Elvis would, of course, demonstrate that Sirk's points were best communicated irrationally.
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