Double Feature: All That Heaven Allows & Letter From an Unknown Woman

Celebrate Galentine's Day at Cornell Cinema with a Midcentury Melodrama double feature, featuring Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows and Max Ophüls's Letter from an Unknown Woman.

All That Heaven Allows, Douglas Sirk's heartbreaking melodrama, centers on an unexpected love affair between a upper-middle-class suburban widow Cary Scott (Jane Wyman) and her handsome, much younger gardener Ron Kirby, played with rugged charm by the dashing Rock Hudson. After their tender connection is met with scorn by her friends and children, Cary is forced to choose between the approval of her small-minded community and her own happiness. Shot in Technicolor by acclaimed cinematographer Russell Metty, All That Heaven Allows is a subtle yet searing indictment of small town life, class-based prejudice, and 1950s American values. Sirk imbues each shot of this quintessential melodrama with an expressive complexity that at once affirms the intensity of the couple's connection and emphasizes its impossibility.

“By the time you read this letter, I may be dead…. If this reaches you, you will know how I became yours when you didn’t know who I was or even that I existed.” Thus begins the letter from which Max Ophüls's a tragic tale of unrequited love takes its name. Adapted from a short-story by Stefan Zweig, Letter from an Unknown Woman centers on an impressionable young woman Lisa (Joan Fontaine) who develops an obsession with concert pianist Stefan Brandt (Louis Jourdan). On the verge of fleeing from a duel, Brandt receives a letter from a woman he cannot remember. Writing from her deathbed, she recounts the story of her lifelong love for him, developed over a series of periodic encounters and a brief love affair that Brandt does not remember, but left her with their child. Her revelations force Brandt to reevaluate his life and reckon with his fate.

Told through a series of flashbacks that transport the view to turn-of-the-century Vienna, Letter from an Unknown Woman is considered one of the finest example of melodrama, focusing on the inner life of a woman whose very existence seems tied to her consuming delusion. Ophüls's precise visual style heightens the emotional intensity of even the most quotidian scenes — the staircase that Brandt once traversed, the window from which Lisa stole a glance at the man she loves, the train platform that took him away from her forever — and culminates a tragic ending that rarely leaves a dry eye on the house.

We're delighted for the chance to share these two heart-wrenching Midcentury Melodramas with you in one evening!

This special event will feature:

All That Heaven Allows (1955, dir. Douglas Sirk) at 6pm

Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948, dir. Max Ophüls) at 8pm

Festive refreshments will be served at a small reception between the two films. You will have a chance to make your own melodrama-inspired Valentine!

Special ticket pricing applies for the double feature event. One ticket gives access to both films and the reception. Tickets are $12 General Admission and $10 for Students, Senior Citizens, and All-Access Passholders.

Part of our "Midcentury Melodrama" series.