Autumnsong: 25 Days of Christmas | All that Heaven Allows, 1955

All that Heaven Allows | 1955

The drawing's got her head in an odd
position, but her gaze, his kiss and his
red flannel shirt are in perfect synch
with what the movie is all about

“Most man live lives of quiet desperation” said Henry David Thoreau, and he was eloquently quoted in The Dead Poet Society. But that wasn’t the first film to quote Thoreau’s lines. Decades before, in 1955, the same words appeared in “All that heaven allows”, when Jame Wyman’s character holds up the book and reads a few lines aloud.

All That Heaven Allows is a romantic tale about Cary Scott, an affluent widow in suburban New England, whose social life involves her country club peers, college age children and a few men vying for her affection. Amidst all this she meets Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson), her gardener, an intelligent and passionate landscape designer who’s much younger than her. In spite of the age difference, they fall in love for each other.

It is in the house of one of Ron’s friends that she picked up the book by Thoreau. His circle of friends involves that sort of people, who care little about wealth and status, much like himself, content with his simple life. Cary enjoys that change of pace, but even she is surprised to find out just how deeply Ron’s feelings run…

The movie is very short and fast paced, and it isn’t long before their feelings for each other become clear. Ron’s love for her certainly cannot be denied. Part of the charm of the movie is in that. In spite of being a lot younger, Ron never behaves as a naive little boy. He is a man who knows exactly what he wants. He’s had a lot of girl’s in his life, but the one he wants is Cary. Before they even make their affections for one another clear he stops by her house unexpectedly and tells her that he’s going to a friend’s house and thought she might like to go along. He includes her in his life and he never, never hesitates. When he invites her to his home he says that he’s been fixing the place up so it can become a home for them.

Ron talks to her about his plans to start a business with trees. He wants to live his life simply, put more silver tip spruce around the place...

His certainty about what he wants, about his love, and the ease with which he brings the topic of them spending their lives together catches her entirely by surprise and she panics. In her haste, Cary breaks a small vase he’d been mending for hours, but he says it doesn’t matter. Can’t we just care for each other, she asks, and he says no. It’s not enough, for either of them. She insists on leaving and he insists on helping her to put on her boots so she won’t catch a cold. Cary breaks down crying and it becomes clear than she can not leave. She loves him too…

The conflict of the story starts when the two of them have to face society’s reaction to their engagement. A widow of Cary’s position with the son of her former gardener… It’s scandalous. Affairs like these tend to get people talking, to bring up the worst of human nature. And Cary doesn’t just have to deal with her country-club friends. There’s also her children, who aren’t that much younger than Ron…

“You know, Cary, as well as I do|that situations like this bring out the hateful side|of human nature. Remember you have|Ned and Kay to think about. At their age,|what people say matters terribly. Have you stopped to think|what all these rumors will do to them?”

Her children, Ned and Kay, are the first to lose it when she introduces them to her husband to be… Her son is outraged at his mother’s audacity and can’t bear the thought of her leaving the house they were born in to live in some “hut in the woods”. Her daughter’s “detached” psychology-student stance, insisting that her mother is “much more conventional” than Ron thinks and desirous of the “approval of the group”. Doesn’t help much. But Ron’s incredibly mature about the whole thing, and Ron is a rock by her side the whole time.

“It's natural, Cary. I'm not like their father. It would be different if you were marrying the same kind of man. Successful businessman, pillar of the community. I can understand it.”

Things go downhill from there. Cary is accused of having no sense of propriety, her own son acuses her of going after “a pair of muscles” and insists that he would forever be ashamed to bring his friends home if his mother should insist on such madness. Her friends frown upon the situation, and some of them, watching to Ron’s arrival in a much inferior car than hers openly accuse him of being in this for her money. Her daughter comes home crying when other young people in town come up with a crack about her mother fooling with the gardener’s son even before her husband was dead…

CARY: Two people who are in love|with each other, want to be married. Why is it so difficult all of a sudden?
RON: It isn't,if you're not afraid.

This is the first film with Rock Hudson I have ever seen…. What a performance… He’s a perfect leading man. His portrayal of Ron depicts a man whose strength of character is only matched by his devotion to the woman he loves. He is a free spirit, whose way of life was inspired by Thoreau’s Walden: “Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” This way of life is the one thing about himself he won’t change and he is scared at how close he comes to it because of how much he loves her.

To Cary, marrying Ron means an entirely different way of life. Perhaps she’s not ready for it. She’s certainly ready for a love affair, but that’s not what Ron’s offering. Is she ready for love?

Cary’s dilemma, between her happiness and her love for Ron on one side and her children’s wishes and social status in the other, is perhaps, not new… The tears and spoiled children reactions are there, as is the realization that the children themselves won’t be around much longer as they get married/travel to study abroad. Cary’s loneliness, pointed out in scenes in which he watches other people in the streets is beautifully and powerfully depicted in a scene in which she receives a TV for Christmas from her children. As she gazes at her own reflection on the screen the man talks about how she will never be lonely again. All the company she wants. Drama. Comedy. Life’s parade at her fingertips all in the simple gaze of a woman into an empty screen.

The movie opened on Christmas Day, 1955 and the final scenes along with the resolution of the story revolve entirely around the Christmas Holidays. Christmas is central for how the story develops, from an unexpected meeting while shopping for Christmas trees, to an important incident caused by snow, down to the hopeful feeling of the story, all of it resonates with this time of year…

There have been many stories about relationships challenged by an age gap since then, but few so masterfully explored the subject with so many details. The performances are incredible, up until the very end and their feelings for one another can never be put in dispute. But there’s more… In the beginning both of them are wearing dull collors, grayish tones for her, simple working clothes for him, but when they enter each other’s lives, they also bring colour to it (an important thing in a technicolour movie, still a novelty at the time). Red in her elegant party dress and his flannel shirt, colours that fit together but make both of them stand out amidst others.

The differences between them are also clearly marked, both in their environment and the people they surround themselves with. Cary’s place is comfortable but confined. His place is much more open, with a beautiful window that serves as the background for some of the most beautiful shots in the movie…

I barely noticed time passing when I watched this picture. So close to Christmas it almost didn’t make it to this year’s blogathon, and I am so glad it made it in the end… It’s got something of anti-consumerism in it’s message but All that Heaven Allows goes beyond that. It targets society’s reaction against what’s different and unexpected, and the matter of having courage to stand up for what you believe and knowing your own heart. It trully is a really good film and I am eager to catch other Rock Hudson pictures now...