Imitation of Life

Rating:
Summary: surprisingly insightful look at racial issues in America
Review: Despite the the time period in which this film was made, it is surprisingly contemporary in its dealings with racial issues, how we pretend they don't affect us but they do, and how we are forced to make choices about how we identify ourselves, even when it means leaving our family and loved ones to do it. My only criticism would be that the Juanita Moore character is almost impossibly forbearing, but that maybe a reflection of the times in which the film was made. One of the best death and funeral scenes ever on film. Keep plenty of tissues nearby for this one!!

Rating:
Summary: THIS IS THE BEST MOVIE OF ALL TIMES
Review: I love this movie. I could watch it everyday for the rest of my life. They can't get much better than this. It's a story and one of the best lesson in life that a perons could get.

Rating:
Summary: A Two-Hankie Movie!
Review: Get your best girlfriends, a big bowl of popcorn (or two), a box of tissues and spend a winter day watching this movie! It is a must if you like tear jerkers.

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Summary: MOORE AND KOHNER - THE HEART OF THIS MOVIE
Review: In 1959, Susan Kohner and Juanita Moore lost the Best Supporting Actress oscar to Shelley Winters for "Diary of Anne Frank." While Winters certainly was a seasoned and excellent actress, I don't see how one can overlook Susan and Juanita's gutwrenching performances. In spite of the star presence of Lana Turner and John Gavin, this movie's heart lies in the story of Annie and her mulatto daughter, Sarah Jane.
Director Douglas Sirk and his glamorized movies was the inspiration for the much acclaimed film, "Far from Heaven." One can see why Todd Hayes wanted to venture into this director's turf. Ross Hunter's glitzy production begged for its audience to become embroiled in Lana's problems becoming a big actress. But with the performances of Ms. Moore and Kohner, IMITATION OF LIFE achieves the status of one of our finest tearjerkers. Sadly enough, neither actress had much of a career after this, and what a shame. Their scenes together are so electric and heartwrenching, they deserved more. The final portion of the film wherein we lose Ms. Moore and her subsequent funeral are the stuff of Kleenex heaven.
Definitely one of the finest remakes of our time. Because of Juanita Moore and Susan Kohner!!!

Rating:
Summary: Dated, hammy, but worth seeing
Review: So sue me, I didn't cry at the hankie-jerking ending. I'm just not a fan of melodrama. However, this film is far from a clunker. Listed on the NY Times "1000 best movies ever," the material lifts this from being just another unintentionally humorous slice of ham wherein the actors are so stagey that it hurts.

The meat of the story involves two mother-daughter relationships damaged by ambition: In one, Lana Turner's drive to be a great Broadway actress (which helps dilute the hamminess of her performance) keeps her away from daughter Sandra Dee more than either might like, eventually raising some bitterness toward Mommie Dearie. In the other, live-in African-American maid Juanita Moore serves Turner's character faithfully but her very light-skinned daughter Susan Kohner aspires to more than the world of the 1940s/50s allows most people of color. These two lesser-known actresses were in fact nominated for Academy Awards for their work in this film.

The entire story line involving Turner, her daughter, and moon-eyed love interest John Gavin is essentially predictable, and is given center stage. I would've loved to see more screen time given the other characters. The real drama of the film isn't the hackneyed story of a struggling actress fighting her way to the top without giving in to the advances of sleazy agents and producers, while sacrificing her romance with Gavin on the altar of career, but the struggle of the oppressed African-American, so little explored in films of this era, to have equal rights with people who happened to have been born with lighter skin.

Kohner's character desires to "pass," as it was once known, to call herself white. The actress playing the role is actually the daughter of Hispanic and Austrian parents, so it's no stretch that she can "pass for white," but she perfectly embodies the angst of her character, which startlingly mirrors that of her "mammy's" white "owner," as she once bitterly accuses.

This film is well worth seeing, for those of us young enough to consider this film almost hopelessly dated, because it paints such a vivid picture of the pre-Civil Rights era. The ambition just to be considered an equal is here presented as strong enough not only for a young lady to totally reject her heritage, not only to leave home and friends and all she's ever known, but to thoroughly defy and despise a dear mother whose only sin was to be born, unlike herself, with noticeably African-American features. It's forever to the shame of the prejudices of a bygone era that this actually happened sometimes, a part of our nation's race relations that's rarely discussed any longer because it no longer needs to happen. For that reason, even surrounded by dreadful sequences like the horrifyingly cliche scene that shows the passage of time with "1948" and "1949" etc. screens zooming at the viewer, and even with Turner's ridiculous number of costume/jewelry changes, "Imitation of Life" is very much worth a peek.

Rating:
Summary: Always Lana
Review: Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here to pay immaculate homage to one of the major Kweenie Klassix of the last century, Ross Hunter's production of *Imitation of Life*. Based on the Fannie Hurst story, it is remake of the original 1934 version that starred Claudette Colbert, as "the pancake queen." Well, the pancake queen may be fine for Claudette, but certainly not for Lana Turner, who, in this version, plays a Broadway actress named Lora Meredith. We have to face facts: the star machine made Lana look great, but nothing helped her acting. She was dreadful, and far too mannered ever really become her characters. But she was straw turned into gold - the consummate Hollywood star, completely manufactured, with lush, bosom-heaving vehicles designed especially for her. Though only after Lana's 14 year-old daughter, the notorious Cheryl Crane, stabbed Lana's gangster boyfriend to death, did Lana develop the ability to make the characters become herself. The cannibalistic studios went into overdrive with projects that took advantage of Lana's infamy. *Peyton Place* was still in the theatres, and support for Lana throughout her tragedy was profound.
On the heels of this, came *Imitation of Life*, the story of a struggling young actress single-handedly raising a daughter Susie (Dee). They meet up with a lovely, well-spoken homeless woman, Annie (Moore) who is black, and her two-toned daughter, Sarah Jane (Kohner) who hates her blackness more than anything on earth. Annie, who doesn't know how to take "no" for an answer, insinuates the lives of her daughter and herself into those of Lora and Susie, and stays with them through the lean years until Lora's a huge success. The "young" part is the most treacherous for Lana - her character ages 20 years by simply removing her bandana, and the strange part is, the fashions never change over the course of those twenty years. Let's do a little movie arithmetic, shall we? At the end of the film, Lana's character, Lora, is a major star with a grown daughter, so we can presume that part takes in the present day of 1959. In theory, most of the early action would occur in the 40s. There is absolutely zero indication of time passing, except when they pull the old switch-a-roo with the daughters, substituting Dee and Kohner for the younger actresses who played them in the opening. But, of course, it would be a number of years in the future (until 1966's *Madame X*) before Lana would be allowed to actually age onscreen.
According to Lana's daughter, Cheryl, Lana instructed her to "walk as if she had a nickel tucked between her buttocks." Lana demonstrates this technique throughout out the entire film, and it is this same tight-assed approach to acting that makes Lana one of the most fulfilling bad actresses to watch (my mother once pointed out that Lana Turner's name spelled backward was Anal Renrut). Her acting, or better yet, posturing, is strictly by-the-book, but she gives the viewer everything they could desire from the glamour standpoint. Sandra Dee is her usual bubbly self and the dynamics between her and her mother never raise fireworks until the end, but the Kohner-Moore combination is spectacular. The long-suffering Moore made a career out of parts like this, but nothing surpasses Annie's dedication to the Great White Lady Benefactress, Lora Meredith. Kohner's as Annie's daughter Sarah Jane is fabulous - a trashy, tawdry little ingrate who feels she's entitled to everything Susie has. What she doesn't have, and will never have, is Susie's lily-white skin, but that doesn't stop her from `passing.' Annie confides to Miz Lora, "How do you explain to your child that she was born to be hurt?" Sarah Jane's white boyfriend (Troy Donahue) beats her to a pulp when he finds out, and she eventually runs off to be a showgirl. Annie tracks her down, and begs her to come home, but is completely rejected, breaking her heart and returning to Miz Lora's with one foot on the grave. Meanwhile, Miz Lora's been romanced by the handsome Steve Archer (Gavin), but he wants her to settle down and be his wife and give her a home. "I want more than that," she tells him, "I want everything." They break-up even though he loves her from afar. She parades around in her Jean Louis gowns, with an array of abusive and manipulative men (this is where it becomes hard to distinguish Lora, the character, from Lana, the actress), all of whom help her up the ladder to the pinnacle of stardom. Years later, Lora runs into Steve again, and their love burns brightly anew. As Susie's graduating from school, Lora's flying off to Italy to make some horrid little film, and appoints Steve as chaperone for Susie while she's gone. In a *Mildred Pierce*-ish turn of events (or better yet, a "Rikki Lake"-ish turn of events), Susie falls in love with her mother's boyfriend, and there are all kinds of mother/daughter problems. Annie's slipping away quietly, but not without planning the grandest funeral - one rivaled only by that of Princess Diana. With weeping crowds, prancing horses and the incomparable Mahalia Jackson singing "Trouble of the World" Annie is dispatched to her great reward, but not before her turncoat daughter shows up and hurls herself on the casket sobbing and wailing. This watershed moment is one of the most well-loved scenes in movie history.
The film is Douglas Sirk's (*Written On The Wind* and *Magnificent Obsession*) appropriately lavish farewell to Hollywood. It is camp at its finest and remained Universal biggest moneymaker until *Jaws* in 1975. Though Leonard Maltin says "Fine performances and direction overcome possible soapiness to make this quite credible and moving," and gives it 3.5 stars, I'd give it 5 stars - but there is no solar system in which this movie could be called credible. Credibility is something we simply do not expect out of Lana Turner. What we want out of her is the fantasy of the Hollywood Sex Goddess and she gives us that in spades.

Rating:
Summary: It Has No Equal
Review: I first saw this movie in 1959 at the local drive-in theatre, I was seven years old then. I remember that I cried the first time I saw it and I've cried on each of the several dozen times I've seen it since. I only recently learned that the 1959 version was a re-make of the original movie from 1934. I've seen both and there's no comparison, even though in the 1934 film, Peola (1959's Sarah Jane) was played by a Black Actress named Fredi Washington, the '59 version surpasses it's predecessor. If you ever want or need a good cry and the tears just won't come, pop this movie in and grab some Kleenex tissues, you'll need them.

Rating:
Summary: Merciless portrait and not so far from the reality!
Review: Lana Turner made a superb tour de force acting with this legendary cult movie as a greedy artist who neglects the love requirements of her daughter due the fame . This film might well inspire to Bergman for Autunum Sonata in 1978.
But in the other hand we can follow the parallel dramatic line in which Juanita Moore daughter repudiating the heritage of her mother passes for white breaking her mother's heart .
Only the golden masterful craft of Douglas Sirk could turn the twist of this melodram soap in a colossal and yet watchable film in a special decade as the late fifties where the racism and the evasion to find out new places were in its peaks.
The script is very credible and touching heart . Nobody must miss this fundamental icon of the american cinema .
Douglas Sirk inspired to that giant german film maker in the seventies named : Rainer Werner Fassbinder and also to R.E.M. for their so well known theme of the same title in the late nineties .


Rating:
Summary: PAIN!!!!!!
Review: THIS IS A GOOD MOVIE. I AM GLAD THIS MOVIE WAS MADE BECAUSE THIS IS ACTUALLITY AND A LOT OF PEOPLE EXPERIENCE THIS AND GO THROUGH THIS ALL OF THE TIME. PEOPLE DON'T APPRECIATE THEIR PARENTS AND MISTREAT THEM AND SOME BI-RACIAL PEOPLE WHO ARE MIXED WITH N.... ARE ASHAMED OF IT AND DON'T WANT THE WORLD TO KNOW OR AFRAID OF WHAT THE NEXT PERSON IS GOING TO THINK AND SOME BI-RACIAL CHILDREN ARE ASHAMED OF WHO THERE PARENTS ARE. ALL OF THEM AREN'T LIKE THAT BUT SOME ARE I THINK THAT THIS IS A GOOD MOVIE BECAUSE IT CAN SHOW YOU THAT YOU SHOULD LOVE YOURSELF AND YOUR PARENTS NO MATTER THE COLOR OR THE SOCIAL CLASS. IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK OR SAY ABOUT YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE DIFFERENT. BUT THIS MOVIE SHOWED THE EFFECT ON SARAH JANE AT THE END SHE REALIZED THAT SHE SHOULDN'T HAVE TREATED HER MOTHER SO BADLY AND DIDN'T TELL HER MOM THAT SHE LOVED HER UNTIL SHE WAS IN HER CASKET. SHE WAS ASHAMED BECAUSE HER MOTHER WAS BLACK AND TRIED TO PASS HERSELF AS BEING WHITE I CAN UNDERSTAND IT TO A CERTAIN DEGREE BECAUSE IN THOSE DAYS IT WAS REALLY HARD FOR BLACK PEOPLE. BUT THE WAY SHE TREATED HER MOTHER WAS TERRIBLE. BUT, HER MOTHER WAS STILL LOVED (LANA TURNER) HER BOSS LOVED HER VERY MUCH AND LOOKED AFTER HER. HER MOTHER WAS JUANITA MOORE A LEGENDARY BLACK ACTRESS WHO DID A FINE JOB AS WELL. MAHALIA JACKSON HAD SUNG AT THE FUNERAL. EVERYTIME I WOULD SEE THIS MOVIE I ALWAYS CRY LIKE I HAD JUST LEFT A FUNERAL. THIS IS A MUST HAVE FILM IT VERY DRAMATIC AND TOUCHING AND GOOD LESSON THAT WE CAN ALL LEARN FROM.

Rating:
Summary: MOORE AND KOHNER - THE HEART OF THIS MOVIE
Review: In 1959, Susan Kohner and Juanita Moore lost the Best Supporting Actress oscar to Shelley Winters for "Diary of Anne Frank." While Winters certainly was a seasoned and excellent actress, I don't see how one can overlook Susan and Juanita's gutwrenching performances. In spite of the star presence of Lana Turner and John Gavin, this movie's heart lies in the story of Annie and her mulatto daughter, Sarah Jane.
Director Douglas Sirk and his glamorized movies was the inspiration for the much acclaimed film, "Far from Heaven." One can see why Todd Hayes wanted to venture into this director's turf. Ross Hunter's glitzy production begged for its audience to become embroiled in Lana's problems becoming a big actress. But with the performances of Ms. Moore and Kohner, IMITATION OF LIFE achieves the status of one of our finest tearjerkers. Sadly enough, neither actress had much of a career after this, and what a shame. Their scenes together are so electric and heartwrenching, they deserved more. The final portion of the film wherein we lose Ms. Moore and her subsequent funeral are the stuff of Kleenex heaven.
Definitely one of the finest remakes of our time. Because of Juanita Moore and Susan Kohner!!!