All That Heaven Allows (1955)

directed by Douglas Sirk

Megan Robinson

For Christmas, her children gift her a TV, the newest companion entering the homes of millions of Americans in 1955. Television is “the last refuge for lonely women,” the friend who will never leave you, because it’s confined to your house; the lover you can always turn on, even at your least sexy; the complete replacement for human relationships, especially for old widows who have learned their place is the home, a total limbo state for the comfort of their children and the neighborhood. We do a secret Santa every year in my family, and with just five of us it’s a lot of fun, while staying on the cheap side. My mother got my name, and told me about her idea the other night that she was eventually talked out of: a flatscreen TV. I’d be like Cary Scott (Jane Wyman) in Douglas Sirk’s 1955 melodrama All That Heaven Allows, with that “last refuge for lonely women,” taking the first step in admitting I am doomed to a life of solitude.

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All That Heaven Allows begins with Cary preparing a lunch for her close friend, Sara Warren (Agnes Moorehead), her gardener, Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson), pruning away in the background as Sara arrives and cancels their plans. Cary instead invites Ron to lunch, though he keeps his appetite small and his conversation withdrawn, until he can discuss his newfound love of trees. Ron is quite obvious in his disinterest in small talk, which leaves Cary, the perfect model of a suburban middle aged and middle class woman, puzzled. Ron is not, however, disinterested in Cary.

Cary is, in the most generous way to describe her, unlucky in love. Her husband passed away some years ago, though the exact number is never stated, and, according to Cary’s daughter, Kay (Gloria Talbott), has been wearing “that old black velvet,” as it were, in constant mourning. After her first conversation with Ron, Cary goes to the country club at night with Harvey (Conrad Nagel), a much older but single man whom her children deem socially acceptable for her to date. At the party, married man Howard (Donald Curtis) pulls Cary away for a dance, then assaults her on the balcony, kissing her, despite her fighting back. For Cary, life is a lonely world of misadventures, where it seems the only man she ever loved has long since left this earth.

I am not a widow, nor am I middle-aged (though neither was Jane Wyman, who was only 38 at the time of the film’s release), but this life of solitude has crept on me as I’ve finished my schooling and entered the dreaded “real world.” It was hard for me to think there was anything truly missing in my life; of course, it’s said to be impossible to miss what you’ve never had. Longed for? Yearned? Desired? Perhaps, but it can’t be missing if it was never there in the first place. That was, of course, until my final year of college.

It’s a familiar story: boy and girl believe they are friends, boy and girl realize they’re not, boy and girl try something new together. There were, however, signs I never really understood, my inexperience and fear causing me to doubt every move and every word. It’s hard to deny someone might like you when they reach for your hand in a quiet moment during a movie, their pinky inching towards yours, that innocent way of saying “I’m here” without demanding more than just your presence. It sows doubt, however, to let these moments pile up, then never speak about them. Suddenly, hand holding in private and late night drives feel like a secret love affair, not love.

The next time Cary and Ron see each other, his demeanor has shifted, and he invites her to see his home and the new trees he’s growing to abandon the gardening and landscaping business for good. Cary can insist she has plans, but in her heart knows fear controls her actions; this early in the film, away from the crowds who determine her reputation, she’s able to eagerly accept Ron’s invitation. From the instant they arrive at his cabin in the woods, next to the old mill, Cary and Scott’s sensibilities clash on everything, from how big his home is, to how patient one must be to grow trees, to whether he should spruce up the old mill when he meets the “right girl.” Their differences, however, only make their attraction to each other stronger: the man of the earth and the woman of suburbia share their first kiss.

Though Cary is nothing like Ron’s friends, he invites her to a dinner party hosted by his closest companions, Mick (Charles Drake) and Alida Anderson (Virginia Grey). Cary’s insecurities build instantly as Ron tells Mick something privately, to which Mick turns back to Cary and laughs. Cary is from a hostile environment filled with gossip and male aggression, her walls always up. Alida explains, though, that Ron truly taught Mick how to live, along with some guidance from Henry David Thoreau, wherein the status symbols and milestones Cary’s world holds dear are inconsequential to Ron. “You see,” Alida says, “Ron’s security comes from inside himself, and nothing could ever take it away from him. Ron absolutely refuses to let unimportant things become important.” Ron’s crowd of eccentrics instantly accept Cary as one of their own—a kindness Cary’s friends deny Ron at a cocktail party later.

I am not often ashamed of others, and I don’t hide my loved ones from the world. I am, however, often someone people are ashamed of—but I can’t guarantee it’s the truth, nor can I quite prove it. Do lovers like to be left alone, or is to share their love with the world the real test? I spent so many months agonizing over my status in a man’s life, that I never stopped to realize questioning how someone feels about you is the first indication that, in the wise words of the writers of Sex and the City, “He’s just not that into you.” Texting in the middle of the night might seem like a wonderful privacy, or maybe it’s the only time of day his girlfriend won’t notice he’s texting another woman.

I kept much of this to myself. I can tell you it wasn’t shame, and I believed telling the truth would curse the whole thing to fall apart, but it doesn’t mean it’s the truth. Deep down, I can never psychoanalyze myself enough to get at the truth of the matter; all I know is I hoped for the best and forgot to expect the worst. Would our mutual friends believe me if I told them he kept his girlfriend a secret from me until I couldn’t go on what I thought was another date with him, and he took her instead? How could I tell anyone I was crushed by, in the grand scheme of life, something so unimportant? How could I tell them when I know they like him more, the person with the great job, wonderful relationship, and well-adjusted life, over me, the darkest cloud on the sunniest day who is, somehow, always dealing with another tragedy?

It isn’t long before Ron wants to marry Cary. He begins to remodel the old mill, because he’s finally met the right girl, but as the two stand next to the fire, her smile fades, fear washing over her. Their love is beautiful, but marriage? What about her house or her children? “Ron, isn’t it enough that we love each other?” Cary asks, desperate to brush off these plans and the logistics of such a real relationship. “No, Cary, it isn’t. It isn’t enough for either of us. You’re running away from something important because you’re afraid,” he answers, sure as he always is, because he’s right. She tries to run, but their love burns so bright on that chilly afternoon that she relents. Her duty as a woman, in her eyes, can change and morph into something new and exciting with Ron.

No one in town, however, and especially not her children, are as keen on this marriage. Mona Plash (Jacqueline deWit) catches Cary leaving the butcher with Ron, and Cary knows rumors are soon to follow. Ron, however, is undeterred, knowing their love won’t be difficult “if you’re not afraid,” he tells Cary. To Ron, being a man is standing your ground, remaining firm in your choices, and not letting others make you afraid. To Cary, she thinks she ought to be a man and stand her ground. But as she introduces Ron first to her children, then to a group of her friends at a party of Sara’s, she almost commits reputation suicide. Her children resent Ron for being so young, though they found it acceptable for their mother to be with a man far older than her. Her friends see Ron only as a poor but handsome object vying for Cary’s status and money. She cannot, then, be a man—she has to be a woman, idle in her decisions, tepid and mild-mannered, to be accepted. As Mick says to Ron later on: “She doesn’t want to make up her own mind. No woman does. She wants you to make it up for her.”

Putting it lightly, being a woman is a tough position to put yourself into. Though I love many of the aesthetic values of femininity, it doesn’t mean I feel like a “woman” in the political, social, or economic sense of the term. There are “rules” in love when you’re given the class status of “woman,” despite how much progress feminism has made. I can’t really tell if it’s fortunate or unfortunate none of the rules have ever seemed to apply to me: men do not approach me in any public setting, I’ve never given out a number, fake or otherwise, I am not an object that has been sexualized, sure, but desire for me, if felt at all, is something kept hidden, likely due to my own status as a less-than-attractive woman. If you don’t follow the beauty rules of the game, you’re told, you won’t win the prizes, as if men are a prize at all.

But I wanted, quite desperately, to be swept off my feet. It’s an embarrassing thing to admit to, because it means there’s a part of myself that hasn’t become as politically conscious as I want it to. I discussed this endlessly with my friends. One pushed back, saying “you have to give up the gender roles,” because it would mean an endless push-and-pull with nothing gained. Another shot back, “He’s the man, he started it, and he should have to speak up.” Maybe some women do really want men to make up their minds for them; but maybe that’s exactly why they’re destined to fail. To value patriarchal systems when they only hand out misery is to be a masochist.

Cary and Ron break up, the pain Cary causes her children being too much of a burden for her to bear. It seems, though, her sacrifice makes little difference to them. Kay believes the two were never really in love in the first place, and announces her own engagement at Christmas. Ned (William Reynolds) barely gives Cary the time of day over the phone, then arrives home for Christmas with ambitions to sell the house he told her she couldn’t move out of to live with Ron. “The whole thing’s been so pointless,” Cary tells Kay, rubbing her temples as another one of her headaches comes on. Then enters the television set, with Cary’s lonely reflection staring back into it, heartbroken.

Cary decides to visit Dr. Hennessy (Hayden Rorke) for her headaches around the same time that Mick convinces Ron to go back to Cary and be honest about his feelings. The doctor gives Cary the same advice, telling her she’s spent so much time running away that her body is rebelling against her with these frequent headaches. While Mick embraces gender roles in his advice, the doctor demands Cary reject them, despite her objections: “Anyway, if he’d really loved me, he would’ve come to me,” she convinces herself, but Hennessy rejects this, telling her, “No, if you’d loved him you’d have gone to him, in spite of the town, the children, everything. Cary, let’s face it: you were ready for a love affair, but not for love.”

As I’ve come to understand it, I was much the same way. We both must have been, at least with each other. It’s so easy to engage in all the innocent conversations, the touching, the pure longing, because it’s all on the surface. We shared a love of film, but did we ever dig deeper into our own issues? I’d admit to rough days, but I never wanted to elaborate, to give myself fully to another person who chose to like me. I stayed completely silent in my pain, and stubbornness took over. I imagine we both held out, because, well, “if they wanted to, they would.” Dr. Hennessy is right, though; my body has fallen apart in more ways than I can count in the last year: I’ve spent more days in bed than I can count; I’ve become accustomed to one snack, not even one meal, a day;  and I menstruate every other week. I ran away because I wanted someone to have the intuition to ask me what was wrong instead of opening my mouth and saying something was wrong.

Cary wants to be the woman in her courtship, which means she’s shackled with all the cruel stigmas that come with womanhood. She goes to Ron, then promptly turns back in her car and drives off, as he falls off the side of a cliff calling out to her. It’s only after this accident that Cary “comes home” to him, ready to stay by his side, no matter what people say. Only when the situation becomes dire, can she finally make up her mind. The whole film reminds me a lot of David Lean’s Summertime (1955), which I wrote about previously for Wig-Wag, but one quote from Lean’s film especially sticks out: “Those miracles, they can happen sometimes. But you must give a little push to help.”

To be a woman, we’re told, is to be pursued, but that doesn’t leave room for your own feelings and agency. Maybe my hesitancy was his great shame, the reason why he could never speak up when it truly mattered. If I spend all my time waiting for someone to pick me up off my feet, they’ll never leave the ground. Cary is the victim of constant rug-pulls, everyone from her quiet suburban world just waiting to get the jump on her to keep her in her place. The rug was pulled out from under me, but unlike Cary, I didn’t fight for what I wanted, even when it seemed too late. She would’ve waited an eternity for Ron to wake up from the fall, so why did I give up so quickly? I can feel as insecure and helpless as I want, but in reality I’ll never know anyone’s true feelings unless I speak up, too. All That Heaven Allows held up a mirror to my life and told me in the plainest terms not to let the unimportant things become so important. The past is another unimportant thing, because it can’t be changed, it’s easy to run from. Fear will always take over if I keep running from what’s important: myself.

Megan Robinson is a freelance writer and editor based in New Jersey. Her work has appeared in Polyester, Film Daze, Flip Screen, and more. She is currently a staff writer and copy editor for Film Cred and a staff writer for MovieJawn. She doesn’t know what the future holds but knows she has to make movies before she dies. You can find her on Twitter @hughjmungo_ and Instagram @megan-t-robinson.