ROCK HUDSON: ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWED.

US, 2023, 104 minutes, Colour.

Directed by Stephen Kijak.

Rock Hudson was a popular Hollywood star from the 1950s to the 1970s in film and then on television. He began as something of a heartthrob star at Universal Studios but then made an impact, directed by Douglas Sirk, in Magnificent Obsession and All That Heaven allows, co-starring with Jane Wyman. And then he made Giant and was Oscar-nominated. 1956 to 1966 he appeared in quite a range of films, westerns, dramas and, especially romantic comedies with Doris Day. In 1966, he appeared in Seconds, a black and white serious drama which confounded his audiences.

During the 1970s into the 1980s, he appeared on television with McMillan and Wife and also appeared in Dynasty.

This documentary traces the film career of Hudson with a great number of clips.

However, Rock Hudson is known as the major Hollywood star who contracted AIDS and died of AIDS, 1985, aged 59. His homosexuality was known in Hollywood, it was a well kept secret, even a sham marriage contracted with his agent secretary, Phyllis Gates. While there were rumours and innuendos, Hudson kept his private life very private.

This documentary is interested in that private life, his Navy service, his finding an agent, opportunities wrecked at Universal and then the momentum of his more serious career. There are a great number of interviews with Hollywood personalities, agents, actors and, especially, a range of partners. There is quite a deal of footage of Hudson with his friends and partners, video material, many photographs – and the interviewees remembering him, praising him, the sexuality issues, the impact of AIDS, Hudson and his illness, even while filming Dynasties (and a notorious kissing sequence when he was ill with Linda Evans and her comments about the issue). There are stories of his treatment, flight to Paris, medical authorities wary, friends and associates frightened, as so many were at the time, of contracting AIDS.

Which means that this documentary is for film buffs but also for those who want to know more and understand more about Hudson and his life and AIDS. Hudson was supported at the end especially by Elizabeth Taylor, who starred with him in Giant, her fundraising, raising consciousness, and support from Doris Day. There are some sequences where he appeared with Ronald Reagan – but the Reagans were reluctant in 1985 to tackle the issue of AIDS.

One of the main features of this documentary is the extraordinary selection of clips from the widest range of Hudson’s films, clips used to illustrate what was happening in his life, taking them out of the context and putting them into his context. Film buffs will enjoy trying to identify the various films. An example is a sequence with Bill Ives from The Spiral Road, 1962, with Hudson talking about the disease and treatment but presented in the documentary as if he were talking about AIDS.

In fact, Rock Hudson was the only major Hollywood star to have died of AIDS.