Imitation of Life (1959): A Review (Review #2004)

 

IMITATION OF LIFE (1959)

This review is part of the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon. Today's star is Lana Turner.

Douglas Sirk was the king of weepy melodrama. I figure that Imitation of Life, his remake of the 1934 film, is his crowning achievement. Lush, well-acted and moving if a bit long, Imitation of Life is a fine film.

Aspiring actress Lora Meredith (Lana Turner) is distraught over her missing daughter Susie. She soon finds her thanks in part to photographer Steve Archer (John Gavin). Susie has been playing on the beach with another little girl, Sarah Jane. Lora becomes acquainted with Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore) and is astonished when she discovers that Annie is Sarah Jane's mother. Annie is black, and Sarah Jane is so fair-skinned that she could easily pass for white herself. Annie and Sarah Jane are essentially homeless, and in a mix of kindness and gratitude Lora takes them to her cold-water apartment.

Soon, Annie becomes Lora's de facto maid, grateful for the room and board for herself and her daughter. Annie also becomes Lora's friend. Lora continues striving for theatrical work, attempting to balance finding acting work with raising Susie and her on-again-off-again relationship with Steve. After a lot of struggles and pushing away the sleazy but helpful theatrical agent Allen Loomis (Robert Alda), Lora gets a small part in a hit show. Her career as a Broadway comedic actress begins to rise. She also begins a long-term relationship with David Edwards (Dan O'Herlihy), the playwright who started her career.

Lora sacrifices her relationships with Steve and Susie (Sandra Dee) in an effort to improve her life and Susie's. Annie for her part struggles with Sarah Jane's continuing efforts to pass for white. She advises her daughter repeatedly not to be ashamed of her heritage. She also tells Sarah Jane that lying will never work. Sarah Jane (Susan Kohner), however, sees the advantages and privileges that come with both being white and the wealth she has lived in through Lora's career. 

Things appear to look up for everyone when Lora becomes successful as a dramatic actress. She also reunites with Steve. Unfortunately, Susie develops a yearning for Steve, who is oblivious to her affections. Susie sees Annie as her real mother. Sarah Jane does not, constantly trying to move through life as a white woman and being thwarted by Annie. Lora and Annie continue struggling with their relationships with their daughters until death finally comes for one. 

Your heart must simply be made out of stone if you do not shed a tear when Mahalia Jackson as a church soloist sings Trouble of the World at Annie's funeral. Annie's death scene is so beautifully played by Juanita Moore that one can see why Moore received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her performance. Douglas Sirk got Moore to be quiet and simple when acting not just in this scene but throughout the film. This is not to say that Moore's Annie was weak or simple. She could rally to anger when she needed to. However, in the few times where she did not appear self-sacrificing, Annie was still at heart a good churchgoing woman broken by both her daughter's rejection and the reasons behind said rejection. 

Moore's quiet manner was a strong counterbalance to how Turner could be sometimes rather big. In that final scene between Annie and Lora, Moore's stillness and grace served to not make Turner's sometimes almost hysterical manner keep from slipping into farce. To be fair, Turner was playing an actress, so at times her at times big mannerism can be forgiven. What I can say about Lana Turner's performance in Imitation of Life is that it was competent. It was not great, but competent. Turner was also quite beautiful in the film. Truth be told, I think Lana Turner looked better as a middle-aged woman than as an ingenue. When Loomis attempts to place Lora on the casting couch, he remarks, "It was a good acting job. And you're very pretty". That seems a good summation of Lana Turner both in Imitation of Life and throughout her career. Still, there were some good moments from Turner in the film.

Kohner, like Moore, received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Imitation of Life. To be honest, I found her performance at times a bit overwrought. However, she did a moving farewell scene with Moore when she tearfully says goodbye to the mother who loved her, perhaps too much. She also has a fine moment when she meets up with a boyfriend who confronts her about rumors of her heritage. As she keeps screaming that she is white, the boyfriend keeps slapping her about, eventually leaving her shellshocked and muddied. It makes for painful viewing.

Imitation of Life never specifies the extent of Sarah Jane's racial makeup. The closest is when early in the film, Annie tells Lora that Sarah Jane's father was either almost or practically white. It does feed into the cliche of the "tragic mulatto", though to be fair it is not Sarah Jane who dies. She, however, cannot fit into white society once her heritage is discovered. Yet, owning to her light complexion, she will not fit into the black one either. Sarah Jane is a tragic figure, and Kohner does a good job making her sometimes horrid manner a reaction against society's impositions versus pure selfishness. "It's a sin to be ashamed of what you are, and it's even worse to pretend," Annie admonishes Sarah Jane. It was true then; it is true now. Annie was at least aware that Sarah Jane's skin complexion would only end up being a curse on her daughter. Tragically, she never saw how the perception of Sarah Jane as a white woman would give her a taste of something that Annie herself could not have, making Sarah Jane's decisions if not right at least understandable. 

As aspect that I do not think has been talked much about is how Douglas Sirk crafted not only fine melodrama but subtle visual commentary. The best example is when, on two occasions, Sarah Jane shouts about how she is white. Both times: when with her boyfriend and when bidding farewell to Annie, Sarah Jane's reflection is visible through a window or mirror. This, I contend, is Sirk's suggestion that Sarah Jane is essentially split in two: the image that she wants to project and the reality of whom she is. The reflections metaphorically reflect Sarah Jane's divided soul and by extension 1950's America's obsession with racial percentages. We are still years away from the call to judge people not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

John Gavin, like Lana Turner, was especially beautiful. He was stoic, respectable if a bit unremarkable. In his defense, however, it would have been hard for any actor to keep up with Sandra Dee. She was extremely perky through most of the film. Dee, however, did manage some strong dramatic scenes when berating Lora for putting career ahead of family despite the comforts her successful career brought them. 

As a side note, for a film about "passing", there was a bit of it in Imitation of Life. Both Kohner and John Gavin were of part-Mexican heritage. 

Imitation of Life is more than about how racism and self-loathing can destroy lives. It is also about the fraught relationship between mothers and daughters. Both Lora and Annie were at times oblivious to their daughter's distinct struggles. Lora put career first, Annie put her daughter over all other concerns. Despite their love for Susie and Sarah Jane, the mothers could not get to the root of them as people. Lush and tragic, Imitation of Life still moves the viewer. Maybe one day we as a society will be done with the Trouble of the World. 

DECISION: A-