Critics reviews

All I Desire, a modest work in some ways, displays the essentials of Sirk’s perfected style—dramatic high-contrast lighting . . . , supple camera work combined with a considerable amount of movement within the frame, and unashamedly emotional acting so marked by sincerity that it never feels unnatural.

It stars Barbara Stanwyck in the first of two films [she and Sirk] made together and, in both of these films, she conveys the burden of the past, of a personal history that has burned painful wisdom into her soul. She comes off as a woman who has lived; and, in both, she utters the word "No" with a distinctive, unforgettably round-pointed vowel that she tears from her throat like a worldly, dignified, ladylike cry.