ROCK HUDSON: ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWED (2023)

In 1992, Mark Rappaport made the edgy, influential, underground pop-documentary ROCK HUDSON’S HOME MOVIES using a Hudson avatar as self-interlocutor to talk us thru the closeted life & death (only seven years back) of the movie star.*  Make that movie victim since, after his very public death from AIDS, that’s the prism used to explain not only his life, but also his worth.  With cherry-picked film excerpts used to parallel ‘real’ life vs. ‘reel’ life (any dialogue containing ‘gay’ grabbed for use*), the film may have oversold Hudson’s discomfort.  So many gay actors in Hollywood, all to one extent or another making a devil’s bargain between work, fame & fortune, Hudson apparently quite comfortable in his shoes.  But what was arguably bold and radical (also cheap to make) in ‘92, now looks tame and old-hat from director Stephen Kijak.  Better production values and certainly better quality restored film clips (we do learn that Rock was a ‘Size Queen,’ and hear a pretty loathsome procurement phone call), but this hardly changes the specious nature of presenting his thinking & situation thru movie clips which don’t even do much to sell him as an actor.  Awfully good looking when he was young though.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Indie, artsy, underground bio-pics not unknown at the time.  Like SUPERSTAR: THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY/’87, which used Barbie dolls to tell the pop singer’s tragic story.  Suppressed by her estate, it can be found if you search online.  Plus a Hudson connection since it’s an early work of Todd Haynes whose best known film is probably FAR FROM HEAVEN/’02, a close variant on the Douglas Sirk/Rock Hudson classic ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS/’55, putting a Black/White spin on the taboo romance and a gay angle to the cuckold husband, deceased in the original film.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Back in 1934, movie execs insisted that the stage musical THE GAY DIVORCE was an unacceptable title, but THE GAY DIVORCEE was fine.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT:  Why not just watch Hudson’s best film, Douglas Sirk’s masterful WRITTEN ON THE WIND/’56.  Yep, same year Rock got his sole Oscar nod for GIANT.