All That Heaven Allows (Blu-ray)

This heartbreakingly beautiful indictment of 1950s American mores by Douglas Sirk (Written on the Wind) follows the blossoming love between a well-off suburban widow (Magnificent Obsession’s Jane Wyman) and her handsome and earthy younger gardener (Rock Hudson).

After their romance prompts the scorn of her selfish children and snooty country club friends, she must decide whether to pursue her own happiness or carry on a lonely, hemmed-in existence for the sake of the approval of others. With the help of ace cinematographer Russell Metty (Spartacus), Sirk imbued nearly every shot with a vivid and distinct emotional tenor. a profoundly felt film about class and conformity in small-town America, All That Heaven Allows is a pinnacle of expressionistic Hollywood melodrama.

• High-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Audio commentary from 2008 featuring film scholar Thomas Doherty
• Magnificent Obsession, John M. Stahl’s 1935 adaptation of the same novel, newly restored
• From UFA to Hollywood: Douglas Sirk Remembers (1991), a documentary by German filmmaker Eckhart Schmidt
• Interviews from 2008 with filmmakers Allison Anders and Kathryn Bigelow, in which they pay tribute to Sirk
• Theatrical trailer
• PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien