User reviews

During the Fifties and Sixties Lana Turner got to remake four Hollywood classics with the following films, The Merry Widow, The Rains Of Ranchipur, Imitation Of Life, and Madame X. I think only with Imitation Of Life did she get into something better than the original product. And the original Imitation Of Life with Claudette Colbert and Louise Beavers was a classic indeed.

The film is updated with the action beginning at the end of World War II until the present which would be 1959 in the movie. Instead of the two women coming together to form a business partnership, they meet on the Coney Island beach when their daughters play with each other. For Lana it's a cheap day of fun because she's overdue on rent. Lana is a widow who came from the Midwest to make it as an actress on Broadway. But Juanita Moore and her daughter are already homeless. Lana has an extra room and Juanita is willing to work as a domestic for room and board.

What happens though is the two women bond like sisters despite the racial differences. The girls who grow up to be Sandra Dee and Susan Kohner also bond, but Kohner who is light skinned passes for white in school and away from home in general. She publicly repudiates her mother several times because she doesn't want it known she's black. Being cut off like that from her daughter wounds Moore to the depths of her soul beyond any comprehension.

Turner has her problems too when success comes her way she has less and less time for Dee and Dee looks to Moore for the woman's answers to teen issues when reaching puberty. If you've seen the 1934 version you know how this will all resolve itself.

The two Oscars that Imitation Of Life earned were for Moore and Kohner in the Best Supporting Actress category. Both lost to Shelley Winters for The Diary Of Anne Frank another story about prejudice. But the whole cast is just brilliant. And the ending will move you even if you've had an encounter with Medusa.

Moore's whole life is her daughter which makes the way Kohner treats her even more painful. Turner has several men in her life each with a character flaw or two. John Gavin is a nice man, but a male chauvinist. Dan O'Herlihy is playwright who has an ego a mile wide. And Robert Alda as an agent just can't tame his wolfish ways.

Fannie Hurst's novel was powerful indictment against racism and the damage self hate can do. Hurst was also a lesbian and she could see that from a sexual perspective as well. Closeted gays passing for straight in positions of power can and have done incalculable damage to their brothers and sisters.

In that vein this review is dedicated to Andy Humm who made that remark to me years ago and it's in the past few years I've seen the wisdom behind that statement.

Don't ever pass this powerful film by if it is broadcast.

Lora Meredith, an attractive widow with theatrical aspirations, has lost her 6-year-old daughter, Susie, in the crowded beaches of Coney Island... She finally finds her in the care of Annie Johnson, a black woman, and her very light-skinned daughter, Sarah Jane, who had been playing with Susie… Before long Annie goes to work as a maid for Lora and the two women become fast friends…

Encouraged by an agent (Robert Alda), Lora gets a good role in a play by David Edwards… In the years that follow, she becomes a successful Broadway actress and appears in one Edwards enormous hit… But fame means work and work means neglecting Susie, now sixteen, who must bear the loneliness of a teenager whose mother is too busy being a star…

A handsome photographer, Steve Archer (John Gavin), is the resolute, admiring love of Lora's life but he too must wait and suffer for her affection… Meanwhile, Annie has big problems with her daughter… Sarah Jane rejects her race, and refuses to accept she is black… She disclaims her mother to camouflage her ancestry and eventually takes a decision with extremely drastic effect…

"Imitation of Life" was an ideal tearjerker/soap opera for the major talents of Juanita Moore and Susan Kohner... Moore shined as the self-sacrificing mother so loving, honest and sincere… Cleverly enough, Kohner projected unafraid sensuality…Both stars won Academy Award nominations as Best Supporting Actress

The conflict between mothers and daughters has long been a Hollywood plot device. Sometimes it is done badly ("Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood"), sometimes it can be campy (the immortal shriek fest "Mommie Dearest") and sometimes a film does it really well ("Mildred Pierce"). "Imitation of Life", Douglas Sirk's 1959 film starring Lana Turner and Juanita Moore, squarely fits into that last category.

Lora Meredith (Turner) is a young widow, a single parent and struggling actress. One day when she loses her young daughter Susie at the beach, and with the help of a photographer she encounters, Steve Archer (Gavin) she finds her with Annie Johnson (Moore), an African-American woman, and her own young daughter Sarah Jane. After Lora and Annie talk for a bit, we find that Lora is having a hard time juggling her career with having a young child, and that Annie and her daughter are newly arrived in town and do not have a place to stay, so after Annie asks to work for Lora in exchange for room and board, they strike up a close friendship, as do their daughters. The film spans about ten years, and during those ten years Lora becomes a very successful Broadway actress, and Susie is sent away to an exclusive boarding school. Meanwhile, Annie is still her loyal right-hand, having decided to continue working for Lora, even though she has been putting the money that she has earned away. Sarah Jane, however, a very light-skinned girl who is able to pass as white, cannot get past her hatred of her own race, and her embarrassment of her mother's color and position. She is continually scheming and running away in order to rid herself of her true heritage, which ends up literally breaking her mother's heart.

"Imitation of Life" is outwardly a very pretty film with gorgeous coloring, beautiful actors and costumes to die for. When this veneer is peeled back, however, the true nature of the film is revealed, and its conflicts are painfully apparent. Lora and Steve are clearly meant to be together, but her career repeatedly gets in the way until Steve is no longer able to sit by idly, waiting for her while realizing that he is always going to be low on her priority list. While Sarah Jane envies Lora and Susie's looks, money and ultimately, color, it quickly becomes clear that their problems are substantial. While they had a close relationship when Susie was six, with the advent of Lora's career, the love Lora had for Susie did not diminish, but her attention and time for her did. When Susie returns home from a break at school, it is in her mother's absence that she latches on to Steve, (newly reunited with the family after ten years) and ultimately falls in love with him. In regard to Annie and Sarah Jane, there is nothing that the kind-hearted, completely selfless Annie can do to appease her daughter, a realization that is so hurtful that it makes her physically sick.

The great Douglas Sirk weaves all of these conflicts masterfully. Sirk, often marginalized as a "fluff piece" director due to the strong melodramatic content of his films, is at his very best with this film. "Imitation of Life" does not stray from his other films in terms of formula: We have a conflict that is socially relevant and somewhat inflammatory, beautiful actors and actresses playing the part, rich, lush colors throughout the entire production and loads of expensive jewelry and costumes. While there are Douglas Sirk movies that I really like for their camp value ("Magnificent Obsession" immediately comes to mind), "Imitation of Life" is so much more. Just when you're about to laugh at a line or a gesture that seems really over the top, Sirk beats you to it. The best example of this is when Lora and Susie are having a fight over the fact that Susie has fallen in love with Steve, after Lora announces their intention to marry. When Lora looks directly at the camera, puts a stoic look on her face and says in her best Joan Crawford imitation, "Then I'll give him up", Susie immediately says grimly, "Oh mother, don't act for me." The performances by the actors are all good, particularly the Oscar-nominated performances of Moore and Kohner. Here's a warning about the film, however – chances are, you'll get upset. My boyfriend, who will probably kill me after he reads this, very rarely cries at films. I've personally seen him cry once at a movie, and that was at "Return of the King", where everyone in the theater was honking. He had the waterworks big time at the end of this movie, much to my surprise. (And yes, personally I was a big mess; I had to blow my nose about three times.) "Imitation of Life" has both beauty and substance. It is a multi-layered film wrapped up in an exquisite little package, which is often cast away as fluff, but is really so much more. Watch it and judge for yourself, but this judge gives it a solid 8/10.

--Shelly

I have seen this movie a countless number of times and know the dialogue by heart. Each time I watch it, I say, "I'm not going to cry this time". Sometimes I almost make it, but then Mahalia Jackson starts to sing and I lose it. My children don't understand why Sarah Jane wanted to pass for white. I tried to explain to them that in that day and age, it was sometimes necessary. The beautiful Susan Kohner steals the film. It's a shame that she only made a handful of movies. To me the most heart-wrenching scene is where Annie visits Sarah Jane in her hotel room. She says' "I want to hold you my arms one more time. Just like you were my baby." I puddle up just writing about it.

In Lana Turner's biography, she writes about the making of this movie. It was made shortly after her daughter stabbed Lana's gangster boyfriend to death. She said that when you see her crying in the funeral scene, those tears were real. When Mahalia started to sing "Troubles of the World", all of her troubles started to come back to her and she got up and ran out of the church. They had to run after her and bring her back to complete the scene.

This swan-song for Douglas Sirk also happens to be I feel one of his best. Imitation of Life is a gem of a film, and for many reasons is a real tear jerker.

Imitation of Life is sumptuously filmed. The cinematography is beautiful, as are the costumes, scenery and sets. The music is excellent too, not just in the incidental music but also in the funeral song sung by Mahalia Jackson. It is absolutely gut-wrenching, and when my family and I saw it there wasn't a dry eye in the room as that song played. Imitation of Life also benefits from some great direction, an engrossing story that deals with a lot of domestic troubles and issues and a well written script. Not to mention the acting- although I am not an immediate fan of Lana Turner she is great as the actress oblivious to the issues she faces but be prepared for a lot of delirious and melodramatic mood swings if you haven't seen the film yet, and Juanita Moore is excellent too as the most sympathetic character. But Susan Kohner steals the show as Sarah Jane, the character I was most interested in and Kohner did brilliantly carrying the second half of this film.

Overall, excellent film, melodramatic it is but not in a bad way. 10/10 Bethany Cox

In Coney Island, the widow aspiring actress Lora Meredith (Lana Turner) finds her six-year-old daughter Susie playing with eight-year-old Sarah Jane, who is the daughter of the black homeless housekeeping Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore). Lora brings Annie and her daughter to live in her small apartment in New York and they become close friends.

Lora has a love affair with the photographer Steve Archer (John Gavin) and sooner he proposes her. But the ambitious Lora dreams on becoming a star in Broadway and prioritizes her career and also neglects Susie (Sandra Dee). The light-skinned Sarah Jones (Susan Kohner) rejects her mother and tries to pass as white for her friends.

Lora is well-succeeded in her career and reaches stardom. Ten years later, she meets Steve by chance and he gives attention to Susie while Lora is shooting a film in Italy. When she returns, she decides to get married with Steve; but Susie has fallen in love with Steve. Meanwhile Sarah Jane run away home to work in fleshpots.

"Imitation of Life" is Douglas Sirk's last melodrama with an engaging and emotional story with romance, ambition, friendship, love and rejection. The drama of Annie that is rejected by her daughter, in a time when color of people was a watershed, is heartbreaking and the best subplot. I do not recall any other film from this period that brings the division in the American society between black and white people so clearly. Susan Kohner has an impressive performance in the role of an outcast girl that does not accept the way the society treats black people but prefers to deny her color. The sequence in the alley where she is beaten up by her boyfriend reflects the mentality of the American society in those years. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Imitação da Vida" ("Imitation of Life")

This Five Hanky Weeper is a classic Lana Turner vehicle. She never looked better.

This is a remake of a 1934 Claudette Colbert movie of the same name from a popular Fannie Hurst novel.

The 1934 version is more true to the original story but it is difficult to find and is seldom shown on television.

The story has been rewritten to take full advantage of Ms. Turner's luminescent beauty. Now, instead of a restaurant owner she is a glamorous star of stage and film.

But the underlying pathos is the same -- two women, each with a daughter that does not appreciate the sacrifices their mothers have made.

Before I saw this film I had no idea who Susan Kohner was. She turns out quite a performance and I wonder why she didn't do more films.

Sandra Dee as Ms. Turner's daughter is Sandra Dee playing a daughter -- you've seen it before.

In the final scences when Susan Kohner's character does her "That's my momma..." piece you can hear sobs coming from the people in the audience...

Do not be surprised if some of them are yours.

1959's "Imitation of Life" was a remake of the 1934 version starring Claudette Colbert, Louise Beavers, and Fredi Washington. Both are marvelous in their own way. The '59 version changes a few plot points - the Turner character isn't a Jewish businesswoman, and there's no pancake batter and a big business success for the two women. Rather, Turner plays an an aspiring actress with a small daughter who meets Juanita Moore and daughter at the beach. As with the original, Moore just kind of moves in, needing a place to live. When her daughter gets older, she tries to pass for white.

The '59 version is done as a glossy soap opera - and why not, it stars Lana Turner in all her glamour and beauty and is directed by the master of this type of film, Douglas Sirk. Sandra Dee plays Turner's daughter - great casting - and beautiful Susan Kohner is Moore's daughter, Sarah Jane. Kohner's real life mother was an actor and her father a big-time agent/producer, Paul Kohner. Susan Kohner retired from show business when she married the designer, John Weitz. Today, their two sons are producers.

The acting kudos in "Imitation of Life" belong to Juanita Moore, who gives a touching performance as Annie and just breaks your heart. Kohner is excellent as well; in fact, the two were nominated for best supporting Oscars. John Gavin, Robert Alda, and Troy Donahue also appear in the film, Donahue in a nasty, small role and Gavin as Turner's love interest.

One of the great tear-jerking melodramas of all time - a very different experience than the original - if you can see both, do so.

As others have pointed out, IMITATION OF LIFE is an important film for many reasons. Seeing it again recently, I was reminded of the top three reasons why it has earned a cult following among women, African Americans and gay men. For women, it's all about letting go of a child and allowing them to live their own life. For African Americans, it's a reminder of how much they've had to struggle for equality in American society. It's the message of not hiding who you are and not living a lie just to please other people that resonates with gay men. This film was one of the first to expose the cultural divide between black and white in America. That really wasn't being addressed in the cinema up to that point. So it must be put in it's historical context to be fully appreciated.

This film marked a crossroads not only for American society, but for the acting profession as well. Sandra Dee and Susan Kohner seemed to be of the new school of method acting. By contrast, Lana Turner and Juanita Moore seemed to be of the old school of melodramatic acting. Perhaps this is why the older actors come off as far less believable than the younger one's do. That's what makes Sandra Dee's line, "Oh mother, stop acting!" so hilarious. I really thought Sandra Dee was too perky to be taken seriously until that scene. Then she showed she could act by keeping it real. Compared to Lana Turner, she's Katherine Hepburn! Also, anyone serious about an acting career should study Susan Kohner's amazing performance. She steals the show in a role that would be a challenge for any young actress. I think she was one of the most talented actors to ever leave the business for married life.

IMITATION OF LIFE is one of those rare films that gets better every time I see it. I guess that's because it's important on more levels than you can take in on a single viewing. I could go into how it's also about a single mother's struggle for independence in 1950's male dominated society. I could argue that it's not as sappy and melodramatic as it's reputed to be. I could argue that John Gavin's performance was better than a lot of people say. However, I think I'll save those discussions for when I see it again.

Douglas Sirk was a director who loved melodramas. He was one of the best men around to add gloss to those larger than life stories the movie going public loved to see, as demonstrated by the movies he left behind. By today's standards, "Imitation of Life", looks like an exercise in high camp judging by all the elements that went into the making of a soap opera that doesn't deal with reality well.

Fannie Hurst wrote many of these romantic stories in which her heroines were always larger than life. Which is the point of this movie, Lora Meredith, a struggling actress, of a certain age, will conquer all the obstacles that will come her way by sheer determination and resolve. Along the way, she will get a free live-in maid who becomes her best friend, raise a daughter, find love, lose a hunk of a guy, then at the end, reclaim him and live happily ever after. They certainly don't make movies like that anymore! What's basically wrong with the story is that few things turn out this well in real life.

The 1959 version of the Fannie Hurst book had already made it to the movies in an early picture starring Claudette Colbert. This new take on the novel was a vehicle clearly tailor-made for Lana Turner, who was at the height of her beauty in a mature kind of way. She was a natural that the camera loved. Ms. Turner was lovingly dressed by Jean Louis. Everything is impeccable in the way the star carries herself as a struggling mother who has not been employed in a while to the days in which she is the toast of Broadway.

Juanita Moore, among the cast members, had the best moments. Her Annie Johnson was perhaps the best character she played. Susan Kohner, a young actress who showed promise, is also good as the mean Sarah Jane, the ungrateful daughter who is a freak of nature by appearing white when she is really black. John Gavin plays Lora's love interest. Robert Alda is good as the man responsible for giving Lora a start in the business. Sandra Dee is seen as Susie, the teenager who also has her eyes set on the man that loves her mother. Among the supporting players we get a glimpse of Troy Donahue and Jack Weston.

"Imitation of Life" is Douglas Sirk's contribution to the soap opera with a superior visual style.

For a long time Douglas Sirk was dismissed by all but he most insightful critics. It was thought that he made a series of well crafted, well acted, but ultimately empty"weepies"(as well as "americana" films, a swashbuckler( Captain Lightfoot), a revisionist western( Taza Son of Cochise),and a sandals and toga epic(Sign of the Pagan.)

However, the "weepies" have been reevaluated( and the Americana films may be reevaluated as well).Sirk is now seen as one of the most significant American directors of the fifties, and, perhaps, as one of the hundred greatest directors of all time. Imitation of Life was his last Hollywood pictures, and one of his best. I call this film, "Canned goods as caviar", because it is an example of taking a "low brow" genre and transforming it into art. Sure, the music is melodramatic, sure the performances by Gavin and Turner are somewhat contrived), sure, the story is campy, but Sirk in his genius transforms melodrama into a scathing critique of materialism, conformity, and racism. Sirk was no cynic, but a rigorous moralist-a superbly educated and sensitive man, steeped in European and American literature.

One of the most astonishing-and misunderstood- elements in this picture is the incandescent performance by Juanita Moore. Moore achieves what is almost impossible; she portrays human goodness. Ican rarely think of a time when an American film has more saintly, more purely Christian figure.

That most shameless of directors Douglas Sirk stops at nothing to wring tears from your eyes in this candy-coloured weepy.

Actually, true to form, he manages to deliver a film that's both hopelessly dated and trailblazing at the same time. Here he takes on racial prejudice, told through a story about a young black woman who passes for white, even to the extent of denying dear ol' ma, only to realize how selfish she's been when dear ol' ma (of course) kicks the bucket in the film's final moments. This is given the 1950s glossy soap opera treatment, as is the film's other central story, in which Lana Turner gets it on with the cleft-chinned and stiff-backed John Gavin (whose hair is so Brill Cremed that it's actually BLUE).

As he did with "All That Heaven Allows," Sirk manages to play up to his audience at the same time that he's lecturing them. Unlike now, when those who most need to see a movie about racial tolerance wouldn't go near one, Sirk's audiences were precisely those whose viewpoints he was trying to influence.

Grade: B+

Some people credit the murder of Emmett Till or the heroism of Rosa Parks as the inspiration for the civil rights movement. Don't count out this movie -- it's so hideously patronizing to both African-Americans and women you have to wonder whether it's coincidence that both groups were radicalized in the decade after this film appeared.

Lessee . . . Lana Turner is a working Mom (BAD) aided by a subservient black maid (GOOD) who has an ambitious daughter (BAD). All the tragedy that befalls every character in this film (and it comes in buckets) is a result of not accepting your place in society. Lana's boyfriend is doing her daughter? Well, dammit, she should just get off the stage and out of movies and everything will be fine! Susan Kohner, as Sara Jane, is beaten by her boyfriend and estranged from her mother? Well, if she'd just been a good little pickaninny and not turned up the noses at the "busboys, cooks and chauffeurs" at her Mama's church, she would be just fine! It's worth noting that the scene in which Sara Jane pretends to be a plantation slave while waiting on Lana's rich producer friends casts her as the villain, whereas she would have been the hero not five years later.

Cinematically, it's lushly produced, in that soporific, 50s eye-candy kind of way, so the visual splendor can distract you from the miserable plot. And the acting, well . . . most of the actors are entertaining in that melodramatic, soapy sorta way (later immortalized in every movie parody on the Carol Burnett Show), but Lana, oh, Jesus! If you shot Lana Turner, she could not play a dead woman. Sadly, she was born 30 years too early for the advent of 3D and 60 years too early for "Baywatch," so we were forced to try to take her seriously as an actress.

Resist "Imitation of Life" though you may, it gets you in the end. It EARNS your tears.

Ross Hunter, Glamor Queen Producer of All Time, and Douglas Sirk, Glamor Queen Director of All Time, collaborate to present the tear-jerker of All Time.

Glorious costumes (Jean Louis), amazing cinematography (Russel Metty), Bud Westmore's makeup . . . on and on with the behind-the-scenes credits.

Glossy? "Imitation of Life" is BEYOND glossy! It sucks you in with its eye-popping production values until, before you know it, you're helplessly dumbstruck with the emotional undertow of the story.

Nearly 50 years later, whom do you remember? Not the glorious Lana Turner, nor the cutesy Sandra Dee, nor impossibly handsome and impossibly wooden John Gavin.

You remember Juanita Moore's heartbreaking mother and Susan Kohner as her daughter.

Watch the careful emotional builds in this brilliantly constructed film, from shallow soap opera to shattering climax.

By the time we reach Mahalia Jackson rendering "Trouble of the World" for the glamorous cast, at Juanita Moore's funeral . . . and Susan Kohner running after the hearse, hysterically yelling, "That's my Mama!," the film obliterates all reservations and reduces audiences to jelly.

This is powerful -- if perhaps hokey -- stuff.

Call "Imitation of Life" what you like.

It's the epitome of its genre and belongs in everybody's cinematic collection.

Along with a carton of Kleenex.

What is there to say except I'd defy anyone not to be moved by this movie and you'll never tire of watching it over and over. No one special performance, they're all fantastic! If you enjoy Madame X then Lana Turner out acts herself. The film brings home the feeling we all may have but should not have in that you should never deny your loved ones, especially your mother and you realise that a mother's love really is unconditional. Sit back with a box of choccies,a glass of wine and a box of tissues and ENJOY! This is one of my all time greats! It really is a mother/daughter movie and will definitely bring you closer together.

In 1947, beautiful blonde widow Lana Turner (as Lora Meredith) frantically searches Coney Island's beach for her missing daughter. Along the way, Ms. Turner meets handsome photographer John Gavin (as Steve Archer). "My camera could easily have a love affair with you," he says. Turner finds her little blonde girl playing with a new friend. Turner strikes up a friendship with the little dark-haired girl's mother, friendly Juanita Moore (as Annie Johnson). The two unemployed single mothers are immediately drawn to each other. A Black woman, Moore offers to move in with Turner and work as a domestic. At first, Turner declines because she can't afford a maid and insists Moore be paid. But, since Moore and her daughter are homeless, they move in with Turner...

Ten years later, Turner is a financially successful Broadway actress. Her little girl has grown up to be pretty 16-year old Sandra Dee (as Susie), while Moore's daughter has grown into beautiful 18-year-old Susan Kohner (as Sarah Jane). Turner's photographer friend, Mr. Gavin, re-enters the picture, rekindling old romantic feelings. Turner questions her life and career choices while Ms. Dee becomes infatuated with Gavin. A decade-old desire to "pass" as White reaches fruition as Ms. Kohner favors her father in skin tone and continues to distance herself from African-American mother Moore. "She can't help her color," Kohner tells Dee, "but I can." Kohner finds herself a blond racist boyfriend, Troy Donahue (as Frankie), while Dee yearns for her mother's man...

"Imitation of Life" is a remake of the successful 1934 film starring Claudette Colbert and Louise Beavers. Updating Fannie Hurst's original story to the 1950s works beautifully. Importantly, some of the racial content is revised. Here, Turner makes her own career - she does not use Moore's talents as an "Aunt Jemima" (as in the 1934 film) baker. Moore is a "maid" to Turner, but is not subservient in a racist way - watch daughter Kohner demonstrates the difference, when she embarrasses both mothers with a bitter "Mammy" impersonation. In fact, Turner assumes the role a male (husband) provider would play, while Moore assumes the "stay-at-home" housewife and mother position. Thus, "Imitation of Life" turns gender, race and class on its heels...

But, nothing works. Both women are trapped. They only lead "imitations" of life. The society at large permits no happiness for the women. Note what they lose. There may be a glimmer of hope in the end, but the viewer must actively participate in its discovery. "Imitation of Life" begins with an imitation of Nat "King" Cole, by Earl Grant. Later, gospel singer Mahalia Jackson contributes. Kocher won a "Golden Globe" award as supporting actress and Dee won a "Film Daily" juvenile acting honor. Both Moore and Kocher received additional award nominations. Turner was overlooked, but plays as well...

This film owes its dynamic visual strengths to director Douglas Sirk, who fills the screen will all the right moves. Assisted by producer Ross Hunter and photographer Russell Metty, Mr. Sirk created stylish landscapes. The artful use of shadows, stairways, windows and reflections is prominent. Unfortunately, this is the last feature film Sirk directed. He left feature filmmaking after "Imitation of Life". A master in using the screen to heighten and advance his stories, Sirk retired too soon. But he lived long enough to see a re-evaluation and celebration of his work. Fortunately, "Imitation of Life" one of his best.

********** Imitation of Life (4/17/59) Douglas Sirk ~ Lana Turner, Juanita Moore, Susan Kohner, Sandra Dee

Not only is this film one of the all-time great women's pictures, but it also is a visually and psychologically intriguing piece of art. Veteran director Sirk went out with a bang with this, his last film. The title refers to any number of subjects covered in the movie: an actress imitating people for a living, her daughter imitating her mother's romantic life, a Black daughter imitating white people, etc... (The title means more in this version. The "imitation" dimension has been heightened in this glossy remake....The original 1934 film already veered greatly from the book. By now, only the barest of story threads from the original novel remain.) Turner (an actress with imitation eyebrows and hair and, some say, talent!) plays a widow who drags her young daughter to New York while she belatedly pursues a career in the theatre. She comes upon a Black woman (Moore) whose own daughter is nearly white in appearance. The children hit it off and soon the woman has completely embedded and inserted herself into Turner's life. The relationship turns out to be mutually beneficial as Turner needs someone to watch her daughter and Moore has no place to live and few job opportunities. Eventually, Turner becomes successful, but she finds that she has sort of left her daughter behind emotionally. Moore, meanwhile, has an even tougher time of it because her daughter insists on passing as white (much to Moore's dismay.) Dee plays Turner's daughter as a teen and her bright presence brings a lot to the part. Kohner is the pale Black daughter and does a fine job displaying the torment she faces, often acting out towards the other ladies. Moore is an acquired taste. Some viewers see her as perfection; a doting, caring, loving, selfless mother who is rocked by the venom of her troubled daughter. Others see her as a pushy, bullheaded, relentlessly defeated annoyance. (In any case, considering the Negro condition in the 1950's, it's hardly difficult to understand why Kohner's character wanted to break free and get more out of life! Moore will have none of it.) Turner looks about the best she ever did, especially in the second half when a dizzying array of Jean Louis concoctions parade across the screen and she's dripping in every kind of jewel. She has many insincere and stiff moments in the film, but also has several great scenes including when she tells lover Gavin that she's going to make it and later when she's at another character's deathbed. Mercifully, her character's acting scenes are never shown....just the curtain calls. The film is a Faberge treasure box of interesting sets, lighting, color, costumes and shadow. Despite the relatively simple storyline, term papers could be written about the psychological behavior in the film and the irony of the editing and storytelling. Anyone averse to soap operas will have already run screaming from the room the moment the Universal-International logo comes up and Frank Skinner's gloriously sentimental scores begins to howl. Those who are game for some histrionics and glamour mixed with silliness and sorrow should be in hog heaven.

In classic melodrama director Douglas Sirk's final major movie Lana Turner plays an aspiring actress Lora Meredith who meets a kind black lady named Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore) on a beach and invites her and her light-skinned daughter Sarah Jane (Karin Dicker) to stay at her home temporarily. After initial difficulties, Lora's acting career takes off and Annie and Sarah Jane become a permanent part of her family that also includes her young daughter Susie (Terry Burnham). Years pass, the family gains a good fortune and the girls grow up to young women, but life is not just constant bliss: the racial self-hatred of Sarah Jane (now played by Susan Kohner) is seriously affecting her life and self-image, while the teenaged Susie (Sandra Dee) develops feelings for Steve Archer (John Gavin), the potential fiancé of Lora.

Many melodramatic exaggerations are present in Imitation of Life, as expected from a Sirk film. Immediately upon her introduction, the character of Annie comes across as almost laughably kind and willing to serve those around her without pay, and she stays overwhelmingly understanding and loving to everyone throughout the story. On the other hand, Sarah Jane is aware of her racial background from a very young age and aggressively tries to pass for a white girl with her classmates, leading to intense feelings of inferiority whenever her loving mother tries to approach her in public. Lora, while basically sympathetic to Annie and Sarah Jane's suffering, is ultimately too carefree by nature to really understand their feelings. Susie could be said to be Lora to the power of two: her joy of life and teenage worries are doubled by her young age and naive nature.

The somewhat withdrawn and reserved Steve Archer carries a fresh breeze of calmness amidst the larger than life characters of the family. Thanks to the charismatic actors and Sirk's steady-handed direction, many of the scenes look rather exciting, such as Sarah Jane's rough breakup with her boyfriend and her later showgirl performances at seedy New York clubs with the sad Annie in the audience. The tragic final scenes also look good, as overwrought as they are.

Even though the examined themes are grand (racism and related self-hatred, mother's unconditional love, class differences...), I feel Sirk's style has been slightly toned down when compared to, say, Written on the Wind (1956). The colours are less bright and the music remains more down-to-earth, even though it still certainly satisfies friends of sentimental violin tunes. Still, admirers of melodramatic family sagas should find Imitation of Life very enjoyable.

I've watched this soap opera on wheels many times over the years. Only lately have I gotten some of the levels of social commentary that are buried deep within. Originally, I only saw gorgeous Lana Turner and her beautiful daughter and their high-falutin problems. Now the part that gets me is the other half of the story. The long-suffering maid and her daughter. I've seen this lots of times, but I'll tell you, the ending still makes me sob.

Douglas Sirk did a fine job.

The 1959 version of Imitation of Life retains a purely historical interest; in script, acting and direction, it is considerably weaker than the 1934 original. And the historical interest is this: if these films are anything to go by, in the 25 years between them race relations and the filming-making craft in America both went into reverse. Concentrating on the treatment of race for a moment, while the rabbit's foot and the 'will to death' clichés about African Americans have gone out of the story by 1959, opportunities and recognition for their race are seemingly more elusive than before. The Annie character in the earlier film is a business partner (albeit an unequal one, a '20%er') of her white friend; in the latter version, she is no more than her maid and occasional confidante. In the 1934 version, Annie's daughter conforms to the 'tragic mulatto' stereotype but retains her personal dignity; in the 1959 version she conforms to the 'promiscuous mixed-blood' stereotype and ends in the gutter. Both scripts struggle to interconnect the relationship between the ambitious white woman and her daughter and the relationship of the black woman and her daughter, in terms of dramatic action, thematic content and comparative time on screen. Although the films place both relationships under the one roof, they run largely in parallel: problems of 'white folks' and problems of 'black folks' are perceived to be so separate. The latter version does worse in this regard. At least the 1934 version tries to bridge the gap by having the Claudette Colbert character go in search of the runaway Sarah Jane. Lana Turner's character just pitches in a few trite comments. This lack of emotional commitment robs the final scene in the 1959 film of any of the power that is present in the earlier version when Colbert goes to comfort Annie's daughter at the hearse. With its undistinguished supporting cast, a terrible score and sometimes laughable dialogue, the remake would, I suspect, have disappeared from critical discussion had it not for its 'controversial' subject-matter and the star pull of an aging Turner.