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All That Heaven Allows
All That Heaven Allows DVD cover
Directed by	Douglas Sirk
Produced by	Ross Hunter
Written by	Peg Fenwick Edna Lee (story) Harry Lee (story)
Starring	Jane Wyman Rock Hudson Agnes Moorehead
Music by	Frank Skinner
Distributed by	Universal International Pictures
Release date(s)	December 1955
Running time	89 min
Language	English
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

All That Heaven Allows is a 1955 romance film directed by Douglas Sirk. The film stars Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson, and costars Agnes Moorehead, Conrad Nagel and Virginia Grey. It was written by Peg Fenwick from a story by Edna L. Lee and Harry Lee.

Contents 1 Synopsis 2 Production 3 Responses 4 References in other films 5 External links

All That Heaven Allows is a May - September romance set in a small town. Cary Scott is a well-to-do widow (Jane Wyman) gradually re-entering a social life amongst her mostly dull country club peers. Her only apparent enjoyment in life comes from weekend visits from her college-age children. Cary then meets a handsome younger man, Ron (Rock Hudson), who owns a small landscaping business. Ron is a follower of Henry David Thoreau's Walden, and "hears a different drummer", enjoying a life focused on nature; he is deliberately uninterested in the gossipy opinions of others. Their romance causes clashes and tensions between Cary, her children, and the country club folk.

Universal-International Pictures wanted to follow up on the pairing of Wyman and Hudson from Douglas Sirk's Magnificent Obsession. 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.^{[citation needed]}

At the time of its release, All That Heaven Allows was mostly panned by the movie critics of the time.^{[citation needed]} However, in later years it was one of a number of his melodramas to have ben re-evaluated favorably by critics and held in regard by a subsequent generation of directors, including Pedro Almodóvar, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, John Waters, and Quentin Tarantino.^{[citation needed]} Among other comments, some cite this film as an example of how to transcend the formulaic constraints of the studio system.^{[citation needed]}

The film was placed in the United States' National Film Registry in 1995.

All That Heaven Allows was the inspiration for Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) in which a mature woman falls in love with an Arab man. Todd Haynes' Far From Heaven (2002) is an homage to Sirk's work, in particular All That Heaven Allows and Imitation of Life.

The film was later spoofed by John Waters with his 1981 film Polyester.

• All That Heaven Allows at the Internet Movie Database
• Criterion Collection essay by Laura Mulvey