Tuesday 3 May 2022

Stella Dallas (1937 King Vidor)

An independent Sam Goldwyn production with Barbara Stanwyck, John Boles, Anne Shirley, Barbara O'Neil, Alan Hale, Marjorie Main, Tim Holt. Screenplay by Sarah Mason and Victor Heerman, from novel by Olive Higgins Prouty, dramatized by Harry Wagstaff Gribble and Gertrude Purcell. Goodness! Professionally underscored by Alfred Newman and brightly photographed by Rudolph Maté.

Factory worker daughter Stanwyck thinks above her station, marries decent but boring Boles. Their daughter is the only thing they have in common, as he moves to New York to work. The mother's good at making clothes, which could have become something of a plot development, but she shames her daughter's new rich set with her garish clothes and behaviour. A bit of a one-to-one here would have been helpful - "Mum, you're a bit over-dressed for this country club. Why don't you tone it down a bit?" And then the mother fakes moving to South America with the drunken bum Hale just so the kid will go and live with the new posh rellies. It's a bit silly really.

Etta McDaniel, as one of the various maids, was Hattie's sister, also in The Thin Man Goes Home.

Better Midler was in the 1990 remake.




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