This film was proposed by our member Adam Cunnane, who writes: 'Would love to see All That Heaven Allows – loved Imitation of Life and it’s meant to be fantastic – but not available to watch anywhere in the U.K.!!'
This heartbreakingly beautiful indictment of 1950s American mores by Douglas Sirk follows the blossoming love between a well-off widow (Jane Wyman) and her handsome and earthy younger gardener (Rock Hudson). When their romance prompts the scorn of her children and country club friends, she must decide whether to pursue her own happiness or carry on a lonely, hemmed-in existence for the sake of the approval of others. With the help of ace cinematographer Russell Metty, Sirk imbues nearly every shot with a vivid and distinct emotional tenor. A profoundly felt film about class and conformity in small-town America, All That Heaven Allows is a pinnacle of expressionistic Hollywood melodrama.
*Please note, the screening on Tuesday 13 February is our Free Members' Screening, and the screening on Tuesday 20 February is a general public screening.
The screening on Tuesday 13 February will be introduced by Peter William Evans, who is Emeritus Professor of Film Studies at Queen Mary, University of London. His research and publications are mainly on Spanish cinema and classical Hollywood cinema. He is the author of The Films of Luis Buñuel: Subjectivity and Desire (Oxford University Press, 1995), Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (BFI, 1996) and the editor of Spanish Cinema: The Auteurist Tradition (Oxford University Press, 1999).
Cast:
Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorehead, Conrad Nagel