Just watched both the 1934 and 1959 version of Imitation of Life over the weekend. It started because I was leafing through a book of Fassbinder’ writings, and was reminded, again, that I had never seen any of the works of Douglas Sirk. There is a DVD containing both films, and Netflix had it. All in all, I liked the Claudette Colbert / Louise Beavers version better than the Lana Turner / Juanita Moore one. The story, about a young black woman and her obsession with “passing” is dated. But one theme that has not is only present in the later film: working woman. In the first movie, Colbert is as entrepeneurial as they come in the midst of the depression. She tries Beavber’s flapjacks and starts a restaurant which in a decade or so transmogrifies into an Aunt Jemima style pankcake empire. In the Turner version, Lana becomes a famous actress, with no help from Moore, and then starts the John Gavin nagging machine: you cannot be a mother (and a wife) while you’re a successful actress, &c. Colbert has a boyfriend, too, but he’s an ichthyologist and quite oblivious to the fact the she’s a pancake queen (BTW, I see from IMDB that this version of the movie was co-written by Preston Sturges).
Posted by jim at March 16, 2005 12:21 PM