Imitation of Life **** (1959, Lana Turner, Juanita Moore, John Gavin, Sandra Dee, Susan Kohner, Dan O’Herlihy, Robert Alda, Mahalia Jackson, Troy Donahue, Jack Weston) – Classic Movie Review 3249

Lana Turner stars in one of her most famous roles as struggling young white actress Lora Meredith and Juanita Moore plays her black maid Annie Johnson. Director Douglas Sirk’s classic 1959 tearjerker melodrama is a beautiful and delicious colour remake of the 1934 Claudette Colbert weepie based on Fannie Hurst’s novel about two mothers, both struggling to raise their daughters.

Lora and Annie meet at Coney Island and soon they share a tiny apartment. Lora has a six-year-old daughter Susie (Terry Burnham) and sets up house with the homeless black widow Annie and her disturbed eight-year-old daughter Sarah Jane (Karin Dicker). Ten years later, Susie is played by Sandra Dee and Sarah Jane by Susan Kohner.

This is a wonderfully glamorous, tear-jerking soap opera, with an outstandingly plush and glitzy production by Ross Hunter, with gorgeous cinematography by Russell Metty and production designs by Alexander Golitzen and ­­­­Richard H Riedel. And there are ritzy performances too. Turner scores a personal triumph in one of best performances, while Moore and Susan Kohner as Sarah Jane, her light-skinned daughter who rejects her mother by pretending to be white, were nominated for Oscars.

It also stars John Gavin as Steve Archer, Dan O’Herlihy, Robert Alda, Mahalia Jackson, Troy Donahue and Jack Weston.

It is written by Eleanore Griffin and Allan Scott, with a score by Frank Skinner and Henry Mancini.

Also in the cast are John Vivyan, Lee Goodman, Ann Robinson, Sandra Gould, David Tomack, Joel Fluellen, Maida Severn, Than Wyenn, Peg Shirley, Bess Flowers, Leota Lorraine, Forbes Murray, Eddie Parker, Napoleon Whiting, George Barrows, Chuckie Bradley, Paul Bradley, Cicely Evans and Myrna Fahey.

This proved to be the Danish cult director’s last Hollywood movie.

On 16 December 2015, it was announced that Imitation of Life was among the 2015 list of films added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. Others include Hal Ashby‘s Being There, John Frankenheimer‘s Seconds, The Shawshank Redemption, Ghostbusters, Top Gun and LA Confidential.

Juanita Moore, the Oscar-nominated star of Imitation of Life, died at the age of 99 on January 1 2014. She also starred in The Girl Can’t Help It (1956) and The Kid (2000).

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 3249

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/

It also stars Troy Donahue, who made his début in Man Afraid (1957) and in became a Warner Bros contract player with stardom in A Summer Place (1959).