All That Heaven Allows
Jai-W Hayes-Jackson and Ryan Rabea
The movie was directed by Douglas
Sirk, written by Harry and Edna Lee, and produced by Universal Pictures. We
could not find a budget for the film, but it did relatively well in the box
office grossing 3.1 million dollars. It starred two huge actors in Rock Hudson
and Jane Wyman as the main roles, with Jacqueline deWitt as the antagonist,
Agnes Moorhead as the best friend, and Gloria Talbott and William Reynolds as
Cary Scott’s children. The New York Times wrote “The script was obviously
written to bring Wyman and Hudson, who made a popular twosome in The
Magnificent Obsession, together again. Solid and emotional drama gave way to
outright emotional bulldozing and a paving of easy clichés. Today it is
received very well even being added to the National Film Registry in 1995. It
is also quite surprising that the only controversy in this film was between the
director and Universal on the ending. Hudson was a gay man and Sirk was a
German born who made Marxist films, in a time when both of those would be
heavily looked down upon.
We discussed how Sirk was very
paradigm breaking with this film, and against the norms of the day. He was
against the oppression of the woman, and that was on display throughout the
whole movie. He used the main character of Cary Scott to show that women have
their own identity outside of a man, and they should be allowed to explore that
through their own choices. He broke down normal gender roles. Rock Hudson’s
character is very expressive of his feelings throughout the movie, he is the
much less well-off of the duo, and he is willing to give up children to pursue
love of an older woman. Cary Scott is rich, and very strong and independent in
the film, opposite the norm for women. The film was non-consumerist in some of
its messages. Consumerism was taking hold in the 50’s and 60’s. Many people
valued themselves by their perfect suburban houses and new appliances. Cary
Scott was willing to give up on her perfect house and move to the country side
with a poorer man who couldn’t give her all that. She was even against buying
herself a television. Also the movie was non-conformist and escapist. Sirk
wanted a sad ending with Hudson dying to show the audience that if you conform
to what society wants you will be miserable, but he was still able to put that
message on display with how devastated Cary was after she called off the
engagement with Ron.
All That Heaven Allows challenges
both gender roles of women and the consumerism around investing in a house. The
protagonist, Cary Scott is viewed as a conventional women until she becomes
engaged to a man who is less well off than she is. Enlightened that her
reputation would be ruined, she still defies normalcy and continues with the
relationship. It was atypical of women to care more about themselves than there
reputation which Cary Scott seems to pioneer away from. We also see the effects
of consumerism in the movie with the house representing the ideal American
home. The same house from Leave it to Beaver, we see that there was a stigma
that revolved around what an American family should strive to embody,
especially through consumerism products such as televisions and cars. All That
Heaven Allows is also brings up the question of why a relationship that was
abnormal, was otherwise disapproved of. After discussing possibilities, it was
majorly agreed on that gender roles was very strict and rigid and that anything
outside of these norms was mostly frowned upon. With that being said, Cary
Scott’s relationship was no different.
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