Imitation of Life

1934 "Claudette Colbert at her finest in Imitation of Life"
7.5| 1h51m| en
Details

A struggling widow and her daughter take in a black housekeeper and her fair-skinned daughter. The two women start a successful business but face familial, identity, and racial issues along the way.

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Reviews

Sammy-Jo Cervantes There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.
Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.
Blake Rivera If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.
Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
touser2004 Representing the struggle that Peola has with a black mother is way ahead of its time but that isn't enough to call it a great film.Beavers was excellent but unbelievable that she wouldn't want a share of the company her recipe created. Elmer Smith was very annoying and Colberts reaction to her daughters infatuation with Stephen Archer was strange to say the least.The scene where Peola begs for forgiveness at her mothers funeral is heartbreaking but other than that a forgettable film
brchthethird As much as we'd like to think that films exist in a vacuum, that is not the case. Still, despite progress, sometimes it is beneficial to (at least attempt to) evaluate art on its own merit and in its historical context. IMITATION OF LIFE is a film to which this can be applied. In terms of its approach to race and gender issues it was probably quite daring for its time. You have two single mothers, one black and one white, who start a business and climb up the social ladder. And their daughters, even though having a somewhat contentious relationship, were treated as equals. But, treating something academically isn't the only possible critical approach. By today's standards, I think the film still falls a bit short in terms of race and gender issues. Louise Beaver gives an awkward performance as a cheerfully subservient "mammy," even though that's the type of roles that were available to women of color back then. There is also an antiquated view on romantic relationships as marriage or "falling in love" is still seen as the pinnacle of a woman's life. All of this, and I haven't even really broached the style of film this is. I don't really mind melodrama as long as its executed well and has a compelling story. For what it's worth, IMITATION OF LIFE tends toward the positive side of this although it bites off a little more narrative complexity than it can fully chew, in my opinion. The primary plot threads involve Delilah's (Louise Beaver) daughter, Peola, who is mixed race and hates her "blackness," and an ichthyologist who Bea (Claudette Colbert) and her daughter both fall in love with. At least to me, there wasn't enough done to really integrate the various story elements in service of cohesiveness. It's like the story had a checklist of things it wanted to cover instead of letting things flow naturally from scene to scene. The outcome of the story was also kind of predictable. Still, the acting, which seems kind of stagey now, was decent, with Claudette Colbert doing the best out of the cast. She was a goddess who shone in every scene, and looked absolutely gorgeous in soft focus. Also, the toddler actress who played young Jessie, her daughter, was cute as a button. Overall, IMITATION OF LIFE is a product of its time. It might seemed dated today, but it's well produced, acted and directed for what it is.
Holdjerhorses That's the only thought that keeps running through one's head while watching this 1934 version of "Imitation of Life": "For its time . . . ." "For its time," this must have seemed a breakthrough in some ways, mainly its depiction of '30s racism. The same can be said for the 1957 Douglas Sirk version: "For its time . . . ." Certainly, in terms of film making, writing, directing and acting, the 1934 version is nothing out of the then-ordinary. It's stagy, slow and poorly written.Seriously: After the supposedly emotionally draining sequence of Louise Beavers' death scene and funeral, with the return of passing-for-white daughter Fredi Washington ("I killed my own mother"), followed by the ludicrously insulting coda of Claudette's utterance of the film's immortal last line, "I want my quack-quack," one can only wonder that this was all received as anything but a cheap joke posing as sloppy sentimentality.Colbert is terrific, as always. A wonderful actress throughout her long career. Still, knowing she early on insisted the left side of her face was more photogenic than the right, it's fascinating to witness her actor's vanity at work in every scene. But regardless of the quality of her material, Colbert never delivered a false line-reading, on screen or on stage. Even in French (which she spoke fluently).Louise Beavers is good, "For its time . . . ," but hardly gives a "breakthrough" performance, for 1934 or any other year. ESPECIALLY compared to Juanita Moore's amazing performance in this role 23 years later (with a better, but not THAT much better, script).Fredi Washington seems good, but it's hard to tell, since she was given so little screen time. Was her part so small because of the racism of the time? Probably. But it's unfair to compare Fredi Washington's bit role here to the electrifying Susan Kohner in Sirk's version.Note too that sound films of the early '30s were still not yet comfortable with "scoring" except for titles and end-credits. Incidental music had to come from an apparent on screen "source" like a radio or orchestra (the party sequence, here), it was thought.So, when a low off-screen Stephen Foster dirge underscores Louise Beavers' death scene, Colbert's daughter has to open the bedroom door to reveal a trio of heretofore unseen black household servants singing it outside in the hallway like some black-face "coon" trio, as they were called, suddenly dropped in from vaudeville's yesteryear Keith-Orpheum circuit.Even "for its time," there's no excuse for the sappy last line, meant to hearken back to the "innocent" days when the film began with Mommy bathing her two year old. Bad enough the line has to be said once, much less TWICE. But there it is."I want my quack-quack." Sure, Douglas Sirk's version has 23 years of film making experience on this one. But SOME films from the early '30s still shimmer and shine even today, nearly 80 years later.This one doesn't. Except as a curious relic whose only value is as an archive "for its time." Sirk's version is the definitive one, say what you will about its over-the-top "camp" elements. Yes, it too is "for its time." But it still packs a powerful emotional wallop and always will, as one of the best-produced, best-realized film melodramas of all time.
tavm First, I have a question: What's with IMDb listing Dorothy Black playing Peola at age 35? This version I saw ends with her at 19 crying at her mother's funeral and still played by Fredi Washington. Was there an extra scene missing? Anyway with that out of the way, I found this movie interesting with the relationship between Claudette Colbert and Louise Beavers being nearly equal as being more friends as opposed to boss/employee even though Delilah kept calling Bea, Miss Bea, to the end of her days. Those scenes were so interesting and that of Beavers and Washington more so especially their last confrontation when Delilah still wants to be called Mammy and not some white woman's parent title (no offense to Bea, of course), that Bea's scenes with her potential husband (Warren William) and grown daughter (Rochelle Hudson) are sappy and a little melodramatic by comparison. I'd also like to praise the child, Sebie Handricks, that played Peola at age 4. She was really good. Ned Sparks as Bea's business partner is amusing with his sour disposition though a little of him goes a long way. I do wonder how many of the people at Delilah's funeral were her friends and how many were simply Bea's that simply came at her request because of Delilah's request of wanting a big one. I also wonder about the trailer that played on the VHS tape before the movie that emphasized Beavers and Washington in still frames with critical notices of them that probably played in segregated black theatres and how the intended audience reacted when their parts were small compared to the white actors. Despite those mixed reactions, I still recommend Imitation of Life.