Director: Douglas Sirk
Writers: Eleanore Griffin, Allan Scott, Fannie Hurst
Photography: Russell Metty
Music: Frank Skinner, Henry Mancini, Earl Grant
Editor: Milton Carruth
Cast: Lana Turner, Juanita Moore, John Gavin, Susan Kohner, Robert Alda, Dan O’Herlihy, Sandra Dee, Mahalia Jackson, Troy Donahue, Elinor Donahue, Jack Weston
Double feature seekers may be interested to know that the 1959 Imitation of Life directed by Douglas Sirk is actually a remake of a 1934 picture. This was news to me and I found they make an interesting and entertaining comparison. Both are based on a 1934 novel by Fannie Hurst (all three go by Imitation of Life), which might be worth tracking down itself. I don’t know anything by the bestselling author, now largely forgotten. Highly popular in the 1920s and 1930s—at one point among the highest-paid US writers—Hurst was what we’d now call a social justice warrior, taking on feminism, race relations, and more in her novels and stories from that roiling period of change. The 1934 movie was directed by John Stahl (Leave Her to Heaven), and it is more out to make you cry and generally successful at it. In that version the Black maid, Delilah Johnson (Louise Beavers), has a pancake recipe which enables the white widow lady, Beatrice Pullman (Claudette Colbert, winning as always), to open a restaurant and escape the economic severities of the time. Some great character actors show up along the way.
In Sirk’s version the Black maid, Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore), is merely a maid (albeit the glue that holds this unusual family together, as much as it stays together). The white widow lady, Lora Meredith (Lana Turner), has aspirations to be a serious actor in The Theater. There’s an interesting tension here between the themes and Sirk, whose reputation is for an artificiality that goes to comical extremes (later the German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder would carry the torch even further). Lora Meredith is routinely decked out in spectacular gowns and jewelry, for example. Everyone looks stunningly great, with the possible exception of the meek and mild Annie, who goes through life with her humble clothes on. She prefers shawls. Everything else is immaculately antiseptic verging on sterile. Yet the story feels personal, and it is searing.
Cast: Lana Turner, Juanita Moore, John Gavin, Susan Kohner, Robert Alda, Dan O’Herlihy, Sandra Dee, Mahalia Jackson, Troy Donahue, Elinor Donahue, Jack Weston
Double feature seekers may be interested to know that the 1959 Imitation of Life directed by Douglas Sirk is actually a remake of a 1934 picture. This was news to me and I found they make an interesting and entertaining comparison. Both are based on a 1934 novel by Fannie Hurst (all three go by Imitation of Life), which might be worth tracking down itself. I don’t know anything by the bestselling author, now largely forgotten. Highly popular in the 1920s and 1930s—at one point among the highest-paid US writers—Hurst was what we’d now call a social justice warrior, taking on feminism, race relations, and more in her novels and stories from that roiling period of change. The 1934 movie was directed by John Stahl (Leave Her to Heaven), and it is more out to make you cry and generally successful at it. In that version the Black maid, Delilah Johnson (Louise Beavers), has a pancake recipe which enables the white widow lady, Beatrice Pullman (Claudette Colbert, winning as always), to open a restaurant and escape the economic severities of the time. Some great character actors show up along the way.
In Sirk’s version the Black maid, Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore), is merely a maid (albeit the glue that holds this unusual family together, as much as it stays together). The white widow lady, Lora Meredith (Lana Turner), has aspirations to be a serious actor in The Theater. There’s an interesting tension here between the themes and Sirk, whose reputation is for an artificiality that goes to comical extremes (later the German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder would carry the torch even further). Lora Meredith is routinely decked out in spectacular gowns and jewelry, for example. Everyone looks stunningly great, with the possible exception of the meek and mild Annie, who goes through life with her humble clothes on. She prefers shawls. Everything else is immaculately antiseptic verging on sterile. Yet the story feels personal, and it is searing.
It’s quite a balancing act that Sirk’s version pulls off. Very plainly part of what it is doing is making fun of people buying unconsciously or otherwise into the whole racial coding system. Yes, it’s rather different from today’s prevailing coding system, but the dynamics are the same. Where today we have turned “woke” into a radioactive term (“woke” basically, as used, simply meaning an awareness of racism and how it operates), in the 1950s the subtle oppressions could run to much greater extremes, as Sirk shows in sometimes harrowing ways. One relatively minor example is that when Lora has a gathering of VIPs (agents, producers, and such), I noticed that her daughter Susie could come out and mingle but Annie’s daughter Sarah Jane was not allowed out of the kitchen. Neither was Annie, except to serve food and drink. We also see that Lora has multiple Black servants but they don’t have lines. Is this a good thing?
Not surprisingly, the 1934 Imitation of Life is even worse on the score. No one is bothered at all that the pancake recipe is Delilah’s (an old family secret) and Delilah does practically all of the labor (whereas the white widow lady Beatrice wheels, deals, and wheedles the financing). The only real credit Delilah gets is an Aunt Jemima type of appearance on the restaurant sign and later product logos. Beatrice is good-hearted and looks out for Delilah’s long-term interests, but she didn’t have to, and history shows that, most of the time, people in her position wouldn’t. These points, I’m pretty sure, are more Hurst’s—I’m frankly surprised Hollywood in the 1930s would give a Black character like Delilah even as much dignity as this movie does. Prevailing conventional wisdom in this picture is obviously still that Black people are inferior, however soft the soap with which it is peddled.
There are similar problems in Sirk’s version, but the thorn that Hurst planted in the side of the narrative is Delilah’s and Annie’s light-skinned daughter (Peola in 1934 played by Fredi Washington and Sarah Jane in 1959 played by Susan Kohner). “Passing” may not be the issue now that it was then (although I guess we could talk to Nikki Haley about that), but it is a profound encapsulation of racism and frankly bracing even in the earlier Imitation of Life. This girl does not want to be Black, that’s the heart of it. She wants to be white—she says so repeatedly. She is ashamed to her core by people’s reactions when they meet her mother, such as when she shows up at a classroom to bring her something. That scene is in both pictures.
I think Sirk ultimately has a much better sense of racism and how it works, which is somewhat at odds with what I know about him by reputation. I feel like I have to be on an “irony alert” with his movies because they are pitched at such swooning levels it feels like he’s treating things like a joke. But his Imitation of Life is much more nuanced about its story, leaning into the most melodramatic elements with a lot of skill. It seems to be sincerely taking on difficult issues of class, gender, race, and more. Those issues are not funny and Sirk does not treat them as if he thought they were. But the artificiality as aesthetic worries me, seems to undercut the point.
I haven’t even got to the gender and class issues that populate Sirk’s version. Steve Archer (John Gavin) appears first and early as a perfect boyfriend, but the minute Lora has any kind of professional success he snarls at her, starts trying to order her around, and generally becomes extremely unpleasant. No one, in fact, is supportive of Lora’s ambitions—to a shocking degree. What the hell is wrong with her loved ones? I have to wonder how normalized this kind of stuff was even in the 1950s.
Sirk’s version, with screenplay by Eleanore Griffin and Allan Scott, is full of knockout lines. “How do you explain to your child that she was born to be hurt?” Annie says at one point. Or Sarah Janes, saying it plain: “I want to have a chance in life. I don’t want to have to come through back doors, or feel lower than other people, or apologize for my mother’s color.” And this recurring line, heard many times from multiple characters: “please try to understand.”
In the end, I admit I am somewhat flummoxed by the later Imitation of Life. The 1934 original is a tearjerker plain and simple, and pretty good at that. It’s fairly called benighted, though its heart may (or may not) be in the right place. But there’s so much more to the 1959 remake, which is much bolder and forthright and almost, you sense, mocking about its intended audience and social themes, notably racism—mocking the audience for its fatuous presumptions. It was the last picture Sirk made in Hollywood before returning to Germany and Europe for the rest of his life, dying in 1987. In fact, it was practically the last picture he ever made at all. His Imitation of Life is an amazing, puzzling, and profound movie—a great one to go out on.
Not surprisingly, the 1934 Imitation of Life is even worse on the score. No one is bothered at all that the pancake recipe is Delilah’s (an old family secret) and Delilah does practically all of the labor (whereas the white widow lady Beatrice wheels, deals, and wheedles the financing). The only real credit Delilah gets is an Aunt Jemima type of appearance on the restaurant sign and later product logos. Beatrice is good-hearted and looks out for Delilah’s long-term interests, but she didn’t have to, and history shows that, most of the time, people in her position wouldn’t. These points, I’m pretty sure, are more Hurst’s—I’m frankly surprised Hollywood in the 1930s would give a Black character like Delilah even as much dignity as this movie does. Prevailing conventional wisdom in this picture is obviously still that Black people are inferior, however soft the soap with which it is peddled.
There are similar problems in Sirk’s version, but the thorn that Hurst planted in the side of the narrative is Delilah’s and Annie’s light-skinned daughter (Peola in 1934 played by Fredi Washington and Sarah Jane in 1959 played by Susan Kohner). “Passing” may not be the issue now that it was then (although I guess we could talk to Nikki Haley about that), but it is a profound encapsulation of racism and frankly bracing even in the earlier Imitation of Life. This girl does not want to be Black, that’s the heart of it. She wants to be white—she says so repeatedly. She is ashamed to her core by people’s reactions when they meet her mother, such as when she shows up at a classroom to bring her something. That scene is in both pictures.
I think Sirk ultimately has a much better sense of racism and how it works, which is somewhat at odds with what I know about him by reputation. I feel like I have to be on an “irony alert” with his movies because they are pitched at such swooning levels it feels like he’s treating things like a joke. But his Imitation of Life is much more nuanced about its story, leaning into the most melodramatic elements with a lot of skill. It seems to be sincerely taking on difficult issues of class, gender, race, and more. Those issues are not funny and Sirk does not treat them as if he thought they were. But the artificiality as aesthetic worries me, seems to undercut the point.
I haven’t even got to the gender and class issues that populate Sirk’s version. Steve Archer (John Gavin) appears first and early as a perfect boyfriend, but the minute Lora has any kind of professional success he snarls at her, starts trying to order her around, and generally becomes extremely unpleasant. No one, in fact, is supportive of Lora’s ambitions—to a shocking degree. What the hell is wrong with her loved ones? I have to wonder how normalized this kind of stuff was even in the 1950s.
Sirk’s version, with screenplay by Eleanore Griffin and Allan Scott, is full of knockout lines. “How do you explain to your child that she was born to be hurt?” Annie says at one point. Or Sarah Janes, saying it plain: “I want to have a chance in life. I don’t want to have to come through back doors, or feel lower than other people, or apologize for my mother’s color.” And this recurring line, heard many times from multiple characters: “please try to understand.”
In the end, I admit I am somewhat flummoxed by the later Imitation of Life. The 1934 original is a tearjerker plain and simple, and pretty good at that. It’s fairly called benighted, though its heart may (or may not) be in the right place. But there’s so much more to the 1959 remake, which is much bolder and forthright and almost, you sense, mocking about its intended audience and social themes, notably racism—mocking the audience for its fatuous presumptions. It was the last picture Sirk made in Hollywood before returning to Germany and Europe for the rest of his life, dying in 1987. In fact, it was practically the last picture he ever made at all. His Imitation of Life is an amazing, puzzling, and profound movie—a great one to go out on.
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