All That Heaven Allows 1995

     Cary Scott is a widow and she’s been living a quiet life since her husband passed away.  She has two adult children and they are both away at school.  They don’t live with Carey but they come home every weekend.  Cary thought she was happy but she starts to realize how bored she really is?  Her friend Sara Warren suggests that Cary get a television set for company?  Ron Kirby owns his own nursery and he has taken over the care of her trees since his father passed away.  He’s thinking of starting to work on trees only and not continue with the nursery.  Ron is much younger than Cary and they begin to fall in love.  They plan to marry but everyone in her circle of friends are not shy about expressing their feelings.  The rumor mill begins to work overtime!!  Her children Kay and Ned think this is a ridiculous idea?

     There is a LOT of emotion in this film!!  Cary doesn’t know if she should follow her heart or her head?  She regrets her friends are so against the idea and she’s amazed at the stance her children have taken.  She doesn’t know what to do?  I was surprised to learn this was filmed on studio lots and not in the countryside?  I also found it difficult to focus on Rock Hudson as a leading man since revelations about him in his later years?  3 1/2* (I liked this movie)

99 min, Drama directed by Douglas Sirk with Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Morehead, Conrad Nagel, Virginia Grey, Gloria Talbott, William Reynolds, Charles Drake, Hayden Rorke, Jacqueline deWit, Leigh Snowden, Donald Curtis, Alex Gerry, Nextor Paiva, Forrest Lewis.

Imdb 7.7 out of 10, 93% critic 80% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Amazon 4.8* out of 5* with 189 reviews, TCM Leonard Maltin 3* out of 4* average user rating 3.58* out of 5*, Slant Magazine 4 ½* out of 5*

Special Note:  Filmed in Circle Drive and Colonial Street, Backlot, Universal Studios, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California.  Jane Wyman was 38 and Rock Hudson was 30.  Selected for the National Film Registry, Library of Congress in 1995.  Included among the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die edited by Steven Schneider.  The title is from the last line of the poem ‘love and life’ by Jhn Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester.