All That Heaven Allows (Universal-International) is what Hollywood knows as a "woman's picture." The characters talk Ladies' Home Journalese, and the screen glows like a page of House Beautiful. The moviegoer often has the sensation :hat he is drowning in a sea of melted Dutter, with nothing to hang on to but the cliches that float past.
Gary Scott (Jane Wyman) is a smalltown widow with A Woman's Problem: after the late Fred, can there ever be Anybody Else? And there are The Children to be considered. Her boy and girl are away at school when Gary meets A
Man (Rock Hudson). The serious difficulty: he is Only A Gardener.
One day Ron asks Gary to come up and see his silver-tip spruce. Would it be The Right Thing to Do? Summoning all her courage, she Breaks Convention. At his farm, it is obvious that he Needs Looking After.
Ron asks her to marry him. "Isn't it enough," she then cries, "that we love each other?"—a remark which apparently means that, in Hollywood's estimation, the middle-class American woman would sooner give up her Honor than her Social Standing. Ron has to fall off a cliff before Gary realizes that love is more important than What Other People Think.
Doctor at Sea (Rank; Republic). The British last year released a little comedy about medical students, Doctor in the House, that was just what the doctor ordered for many U.S. moviegoers. This sequel is made to the same prescription for hilarity, but somehow it turns out to be something of a pill. The young medic (Dirk Bogarde, last year voted the most popular actor in Great Britain), is now licensed for practice, hires on as ship's doctor on a seagoing tramp. The captain (James Robertson Justice) is a Victorian horror known as "Father," who beetles above his timorous charges like a stuffed rhinoceros in a nursery school. Ship's doctor, as far as he is concerned, is merely the little chap who changes the captain's corn plasters in the morning.
The crew is a little more appreciative of the medical profession. "I hope," somebody asks with a lewd smirk, "you know all about Sailors' Troubles?" Troubles begin when the ship puts into a tropical port, and Father—who is determined to steal the social thunder from a rival captain—decrees a dance on the foredeck. "Bung ho!" cries a junior officer as he offers his shove potion (a cocktail made with surgical alcohol) to a passing frail. As she rapidly gets frailer, he coos insidiously: "I say, would you care to come and see the steering gear? It's rather an interesting one, really. I'd like you to see it." The doctor, for his part, meets a French girl (Brigitte Bardot) who is just coming out of a shower. "Oo," she says, and clutches her towel closer. "I suppose," he stutters apologetically as he backs out of her stateroom, "I'll be seeing more of you presently." He invites her down, in fact, for a look at his operating room, but even though the operation seems to be a success, the patience dies.