Douglas Sirk did not do subtle romances; he embellished his stories with interesting yet vaguely exploitative elements more suited to the soap opera genre and then amped the melodrama to eleven.
IMITATION OF LIFE, basically a romantic potboiler by Fannie Hurst that would not be out of place in an Oprah's Book of the Month, is here given the grand Technicolor treatment and stars Lana Turner -- not particularly known for warmth or romantic heroines. This for the most part, is her movie and even as a struggling actress (hard to believe given her icy beauty) she is dressed impeccably and seems quite well-to-do despite her character being a waitress. That she improbably forms an alliance with Juanita Moore and her daughter Sarah Jane in tow (who cries at the drop of a hat and later has what seems to be a moment when she quietly cracks as she says "White, like me") is only to set the stage for the "racial confusion" that develops later on (and drives the majority of events) and would color the film with "controversial elements".
That Turner's success as an actress seems as forced as her romance with daughter's love interest doesn't detract the soapy elements of IMITATION, but Susan Kohner, playing Sarah Jane all grown up, steals the show and is the only one who rises above the drivel that surrounds her, carrying a lot of the film's weight in its second half. In playing her racial trauma and need for survival at least her story fits the times; light skinned blacks admit that they did have to "pass for white" in order to move on up, and with Kohner being half white, half Mexican only hammers the point home even more and exposes a lot of hypocrisy that at the time a light-skinned African-American actress would and could not be cast for this part.
The best scene comes when Kohner's beau, on discovering she is actually black, all but rapes her in a dark alley. It's the only sequence that doesn't reek of soap, and although Kohner's storyline eventually becomes muddled with her melodramatic interaction with Moore and her later appearance at her mother's funeral, it's really the most poignant part of this film and manages to reveal its soul. This was the cornerstone of Douglas Sirk movies: tell a good, tissue-friendly yarn that in its second half and conclusion would punch the audience with a strong moral and in this he succeeded, with followers in Herbert Ross' STEEEL MAGNOLIAS and James L. Brooks TERMS OF ENDEARMENT.
Douglas Sirk, after this film, would basically retire and leave behind a collection of overblown melodramas that have quite a following.
IMITATION OF LIFE, basically a romantic potboiler by Fannie Hurst that would not be out of place in an Oprah's Book of the Month, is here given the grand Technicolor treatment and stars Lana Turner -- not particularly known for warmth or romantic heroines. This for the most part, is her movie and even as a struggling actress (hard to believe given her icy beauty) she is dressed impeccably and seems quite well-to-do despite her character being a waitress. That she improbably forms an alliance with Juanita Moore and her daughter Sarah Jane in tow (who cries at the drop of a hat and later has what seems to be a moment when she quietly cracks as she says "White, like me") is only to set the stage for the "racial confusion" that develops later on (and drives the majority of events) and would color the film with "controversial elements".
That Turner's success as an actress seems as forced as her romance with daughter's love interest doesn't detract the soapy elements of IMITATION, but Susan Kohner, playing Sarah Jane all grown up, steals the show and is the only one who rises above the drivel that surrounds her, carrying a lot of the film's weight in its second half. In playing her racial trauma and need for survival at least her story fits the times; light skinned blacks admit that they did have to "pass for white" in order to move on up, and with Kohner being half white, half Mexican only hammers the point home even more and exposes a lot of hypocrisy that at the time a light-skinned African-American actress would and could not be cast for this part.
The best scene comes when Kohner's beau, on discovering she is actually black, all but rapes her in a dark alley. It's the only sequence that doesn't reek of soap, and although Kohner's storyline eventually becomes muddled with her melodramatic interaction with Moore and her later appearance at her mother's funeral, it's really the most poignant part of this film and manages to reveal its soul. This was the cornerstone of Douglas Sirk movies: tell a good, tissue-friendly yarn that in its second half and conclusion would punch the audience with a strong moral and in this he succeeded, with followers in Herbert Ross' STEEEL MAGNOLIAS and James L. Brooks TERMS OF ENDEARMENT.
Douglas Sirk, after this film, would basically retire and leave behind a collection of overblown melodramas that have quite a following.