Imitation of Life

Great movie!!!!

This gripping story gives viewers a glimpse of what it was like for young women whose beauty and friendship were obscured by the tragedy of segregation and racism in the 1950s... of course, this version is a remake of one made 25 years earlier.

This remake is quite different from the 1934 original in several ways. Bea's character is now named Lora (Lana Turner) and is an aspiring actress in New York City. She meets Delilah's character, now named Annie (Juanita Moore), at the beach on Coney Island. Annie and her daughter Sarah Jane have recently become homeless and Lora agrees to take them in just for the night. Lora is a single mother supporting her daughter Susie and she can't afford to support Annie and Sarah Jane too. Annie gets a job washing shirts and she and her daughter end up staying. Eventually, Lora becomes a successful Broadway actress and is very wealthy. Annie's role in Lora's success is that she takes care of Susie while Lora is working. Lora works a lot so Annie is more of a mother to Susie than Lora is in most ways.Lora's romance with Steve Archer (John Gavin) is fraught with conflict in this movie. He can only be with her if she prioritizes him over her work and apparently that means not working at all. He's a good guy though; it's clear that this expectation is not unreasonable. It's Lora who is being unreasonable wanting to work when there is a perfectly good man wanting to take care of her. I wasn't expecting to find such a sexist subplot - the 1930s version portrayed women in a way better and stronger light!Sarah Jane's struggle with being a light-skinned black person has a bigger part in this movie than Peola's struggle in the original. I was disappointed that they did not cast a black person to play Sarah Jane. Susan Kohner did do a fabulous job playing Sarah Jane though and was nominated for both an Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for the role. Sarah Jane is even more of a "tragic mulatto" in this movie and has quite a few dramatic scenes in which she talks about why she wants to be white.This movie address the issues of race in a more direct way than the original which I'm sure is a product of the time in which it was made. When Lora suggests that Annie talk to Sarah Jane about not trying to pass as white, Annie says, "How do you explain to your child that she was born to be hurt?" Like Delilah in the original movie, Annie wants a big funeral when she dies. She tells Lora to please invite all of Annie's friends. Lora looks surprised and tells Annie that she didn't know Annie had any friends besides her - very telling of the one-sided nature of their relationship.Another difference between the two movies that I must note is the heightened drama in the remake. Lana Turner chews the scenery every chance she gets and the score is very heavy handed. The melodramatic background music makes sure that the viewer is not confused when something VERY DRAMATIC is happening.This movie has all kinds of interesting movie star connections. Alan Alda's dad, Robert Alda, plays an agent. Troy Donahue, who was just starting out, has a small part as a real jerk - he was not dreamy at all in this movie. And Susan Kohler's son is Chris Weitz, the director of The Twilight Saga: New Moon.It was interesting to watch the two versions of Imitation of Life back to back and see how much (and how little) relationships between black people and white people changed over the twenty-five years between the two movies.

Just purchased an extra copy love this movie

I’ve seen this film before and it’s absolutely fabulous. And I could see myself buying it so I have it all the time. But I never rec’d this, unless it streamed to prime television and I have yet to find it. I would recommend this move to a EVERYBODY!!

Love this movie. I am 78 years old and I remember watching it with my mom in the late fifties. We both cried together watching it.

My husband wanted us to watch this movie, because I’ve identified with my African American side and he thought it was important for me to watch this movie to know more about Being able to “pass” and I was able to see where she was coming from. And understand more. Good movie.

Sad, but contains a lot of true history.

VERY PLEASE

One of my favourite old films. Can't count the number of times I've watched it. Never fails to deliver. Excellent.

Me ha gustado, clásico melodrama

The film gets four stars for the title alone. Whilst in the original film, the "imitation of life" was just a reference to Peola's (in this film, Sarah Jane) desire to pass for white, in this film, three out of the four main characters have been living their own imitations of life. Lora (Lana Turner) persues fame and fortune as an actress whilst neglecting the ones she really loves; Sarah Jane (Susan Kohler) passes as white not to gain better social rights but to persue false ideals of "white beauty"; and Lora's daughter Suzy (Sandra Dee) nurses a hopeless crush on her mother's boyfriend, Steve (John Gavin). Only Annie (Juanita Moore), Sarah Jane's black mother and Lora's maid/friend, lives a real life by her loving devotion to the other three. Unfortunately the devotion is rejected by Sarah Jane.The Sarah Jane role works better here than it does in the original 1934 film, although Kohler is whiter than the actress playing the child version of Sarah Jane. In the original, Delilah is very much the "mammy" stereotype and it's no wonder that her daughter would want to reject that life, despite loving her mother. In this film, Annie may be a humble maid but she's not a stereotype, and so Sarah Jane's rejection of her mother in order to persue what everyone around her can see as an unsatisfying existence is all the more tragic. Sarah Jane is not "evil" as some reviewers have claimed- she simply persues a false version of beauty instead of accepting herself. This film also focuses more on the Annie/Sarah Jane story and you grow to care deeply for the characters.Lana Turner really seems to identify with the Lora role, which is more exciting than the equivilent in the original film. We watch her form loveless attachments to men in order to advance her career, neglecting her daughter and Annie in the process. As Lora's daughter, Sandra Dee convinces as a sweet "perfect" teenager, longing for romance and envying Sarah Jane's glamorous beauty.The men in the film do not stand out in the way that the women do, but this is very much a woman's picture, emphasising female bonds over trying to please men. It's the perfect break-up film.The only other Douglas Sirk film I've seen is part of All That Heaven Allows but Imitation of Life is one of those films that epitomises a director's style. Sirk shows us a technicolour version of suburbia aesthetically but emotionally this suburban life is empty. The melodramatic style, as well as being undeniably effective in inducing tears, alerts us to the "falseness" of this life.

Endlich ist dieser - einer meiner Lieblingsfilme - auf DVD erschienen. Heute habe ich die DVD erhalten und habe den Film gleich angeschaut und mindestens 2 Liter Tränenflüssigkeit verloren :o)Ein Film, der fesselnd die Konflikte zweier Mütter, die nicht unterschiedlicher sein könnten, mit ihren Töchtern erzählt. Ob die Karrieresucht der einen Mutter, oder die in den fünfziger Jahren in den USA herrschenden rassistischen Vorurteile dargestellt werden, der Film packt und bewegt den Zuschauer.Seinerzeit war dieser Film ein mutiges Unterfangen, die Probleme einer farbigen Mutter mit ihrer (fast weißen) Tochter auf die Leinwand zu bringen und dies nicht etwa in einem B-Movie, sondern in einem aufwändigen Melodram mit Starbesetzung.Heute wird dies (meines Erachtens völlig zu unrecht) leicht abwertend "Großes Gefühlskino" genannt.In einer Zeit, in welcher das junge Publikum mit Fantasy und Action bombardiert wird, dürfte diesem der Zugang zu solch einem Film schwerfallen.In meiner Jugend lief "Imitation of Life" noch zur Hauptsendezeit in ARD oder ZDF und das war gut so :o)Zur DVD selbst: Leider sind keinerlei Extras (Doku oder Hintergrundinfos) vorhanden, einzig sind Trailer vorhanden.Ich denke, Douglas Sirk, Lana Turner oder John Gavin hätten genügend Material geliefert!Die Tonqualität ist in etwa so, wie man sie vom TV gewöhnt ist.Die Bildqualität ist soweit in Ordnung, als das "Alterserscheinungen" entfernt wurden, die etwas grobe Bildauflösung dürfte mit dem damals verwendenten Farbverfahren zu tun haben. (Es war eben kein Technicolor!) Im Großen und ganzen aber zufriedenstellend, auf jeden Fall aber besser als im TV. Das Bildformat dürfte dem Original entsprechen, in keiner Szene wirkt etwas "abgeschnitten". Auf jeden Fall auch besser, als bisher im TV gesehen!Daher meine Empfehlung: wer großes Hollywoodkino und große Stars der 50er Jahre mag ---- unbedingt kaufen!!!!