Imitation of Life (1959)

Directed by Douglas Sirk. Starring Lana Turner, Juanita Moore, John Gavin, Susan Kohner, Sandra Dee, Dan O’Herlihy, Robert Alda, Terry Burnham, Karin Dicker, Troy Donahue.

Second film version of Fannie Hurst’s sentimental novel of class, race, gender and family is narrowly inferior to the 1934 adaptation by John M. Stahl, but it’s not without value. Douglas Sirk’s trademark lush Technicolor treatment is aglow, for one; for another, Juanita Moore gets the biggest role of her career, and she’s superb. Aside from a few notable changes—the lead character goes from being a pancake entrepreneur to a model/actress—the story is roughly the same, chronicling the lives of Turner’s single white mother and Moore’s single black mother, raising their children while the latter works for (and lives with) the former as a housekeeper and nanny. Turner’s daughter grows up to develop a fixation on her mother’s lover (Gavin) and Moore’s light-skinned little girl is ashamed of her race and tries to pass for white. The racial commentary hasn’t advanced much over the previous twenty-five years, although its intentions are arguably even purer. The results are soapier than a washing machine in a slapstick-heavy sitcom, but as beautiful as a Crayola dream. Sirk’s smothering style leaves just enough breathing room for a few episodes of potent melodrama, but the whole thing is dragged down by insufficient performances from a stiffly-poised Turner, a congested Gavin, and an amateurish Dee (playing Turner’s daughter as a teenager). Sirk’s final Hollywood film, and this is considered by many die-hard fans of the director’s work to be his crowning achievement.

61/100