Listen to our full discussion of this classic melodram on our new podcast series Mysterium Pictorum! Available on any podcasting app you like!
"All I desire" ended too early:
What about the daughter's dream of becoming an actress now? The last we saw of her was how she ran away, crying!
Will Jordan Peterson be able to fight off Lena or will they marry?
Why do Jordan Peterson and Lena have to both quit work to marry each other? Are married people in general not allowed to work? I thought only women were not allowed to have their own money, to make them dependent on the man. If both don't work - How did 1950's America function? Who did work? The children?
How awkward exactly will it be between the youngest son and his best friend, after the latter has attempted to rape the son's mother and got shot by her? I would have liked to see that scene.
What about Sara, the horny school teacher? She obviously won't get the desired DILF - Will she find happiness?
There are many more open questions, but the movie expects us to be contend with the knowledge that Barbara Stanwyck went back to a small town she didn't like and that didn't like her back, because - Why exactly!?
That's a puzzling feature of American mainstream cinema to this day: The hero's return to the depressing small towns they escaped. Be it Hallmark Christmas movies, Sweet Home Alabama, The Wizard of Oz or Eurovision - The Story of Fire Saga - That kind of ending is all over the place.
And it sends a dangerous and outright wrong message! I don't know about the US, but in Germany, the number one cause of death among teenagers and young adults in small towns and rural areas is suicide.
For all of those kids, films with messages like this one are outright dangerous.
"There's no place like Home"-Cinema needs to get cancelled!
There are tons of better places than small towns! Escape is possible! Not fitting in is no obstacle for your eventual, personal happiness - You will be able to find a place where you fit in!
"All I Desire" has a number of questionable messages and not many redeeming qualities, but it is entertaining, that's for sure!
We tried to say more positive things about it on the podcast. That whole "stay in your village" mentality just really upsets me.