MOVIE REVIEW: Imitation of Life (1959)
I was always surrounded by Black people growing up and they understood going to school where the education was best would be key, but none of them ever mentioned mixing with other races on a physical level as a possibility. For them, encounters like that were not undertaken lightly: either it happened to you or you consented with full knowledge of what would come next. Back then it was still very taboo to mix races, so everyone involved faced the consequences — including the children produced. Then came MTV in the 1980s, where videos like Terence Trent D’Arby’s “Sign Your Name” showcased romantic interracial pairings — and even went so far as to show us mixed race children as a direct result. To be fair Terence Trent D’Arby was from Europe where nobody important cares about race-mixing, but in America we were still dealing with the fallout of imagined miscegenation threats in the 1960s and 1970s…and many of our parents were ill-equipped to explain these “new ideas”.
Prior to the new ideas, things were much more rigid for Negroes in the wake of an American victory after the Second World War. Most of America rejected the idea of a “double-victory” — winning the battle against its enemies abroad (the Axis Powers) and at home (xenophobia, racism) — and it was business as usual for Negro soldiers when the war was over. No matter what the did or how well they did it, the specter of slavery and America’s derived skin color-coded caste system would always haunt them. Such a mindset from their oppressors kept amazing people like Dr. Charles Drew, Dorothy Height, and Sammy Davis, Jr. away from what was deservedly theirs: a dignified life worth living.
It’s why so many did their best to escape the stigma of being Black through “passing”, no matter the cost to physical safety or mental health.
On a Coney Island beach in the summer of 1947, a mother loses track of her daughter: recently widowed actress Lora (Lana Turner, The Postman Always Rings Twice [1946], Peyton Place [1957]) scours the crowd for her daughter Susie (Terry Burnham, For the Love of Willadean [1964]) with the help of a cute guy she met named Steve (John Gavin, Psycho [1960], History of the World Part I [1981]). She finds her in the company of Negro single-mother Annie (Juanita Moore, Ransom! [1956], Uptight [1968]) and her daughter Sarah Jane (Karin Dicker, “This Man Dawson” [TV-syndicated]). The girls get along fine as the women talk shop: Lora assumes Annie is Sarah Jane’s nanny, but she’s actually her mother — Sarah Jane is half-White. Lora is still willing to offer her a job as a domestic worker, which works out for Annie because she recently lost her job. And so a lifelong friendship is struck, as their lives become intertwined and Lora’s future success as an actress carries them all into contact with the rich and famous. There are two hiccups in this rags-to-riches tale: misplaced focus and racism.
Lora is so focused on her career that she has no time to develop a relationship with her daughter. She nearly loses her over her quest to be the best actress and get her Academy Award, but she pulls back towards the end. Annie’s circumstances are not as bright, as she rarely takes a break from minding Miss Lora. Raising Sarah Jane on her own was hard enough: on the one hand she was the sole parent, while on the other hand she had to deal with the desires in Sarah Jane’s heart. The child noted she’s just as light and pretty as Lora’s daughter Susie, but she’s not treated the same. Annie could not or would not explain racism to Sarah Jane, and that’s where the problem starts. The anger at her undefined rejection becomes a rejection of her own mother and all that comes with it — boiling in Sarah Jane’s blood and coming to a head 10 years later, with a tragic story worthy of every award Hollywood has to offer.
<<SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT>>
Hearing the angst in the voice of young adult Sarah Jane (Susan Kohner, Freud: the Secret Passion [1962]) as she rages against the system forcing her to be something she does not want to be is one of the most painful things you’ll ever hear. Regardless of your ethnicity, we all can relate to being pigeonholed as something other than what we are. Speaking of othering, Sarah Jane’s attempt to escape being othered by marrying a White guy would have been a sound plot, requiring only that she tell him and he accept the idea. I say that as someone sitting 65 years in the future (as of the writing of this review), where interracial relationships are common. Even though things were so hard in the 20th Century for Black people passing as White, the idea that she should reject Annie was foolish and disrespectful: you only get one mom. The movie is an amazing production from start to finish, and required watching for anyone who likes a slow-burn film with an emotionally pyrotechnic third act.
To want and be denied for reasons beyond your control can be a maddening experience, and my heart always goes out to all the characters in the film whenever I watch it. If you want to cry for happiness and sadness and rage while bathed in mid-20th Century glamour, this is the movie for you.
CHOICE CUTS:
- This movie is a remake of the 1934 film, itself an adaptation of the 1933 novel by Fannie Hurst.
- In the time period this film was made, the term “Negro” was preferred over “Black” to describe people descended from enslaved Africans. The term would be a catch-all to describe all Negroid peoples regardless of ancestral enslavement.
- Lana Turner’s glamorous turns in all her costumes makes up half the movies best shots. The costumes alone cost over $1 million dollars.
- What’s most telling about Hollywood racism is Juanita Moore’s list of acting credits. Almost all of them are uncredited, as she played mostly natives and servants.
- The black velvet background with diamonds raining down is an iconic title card, as it renders the gems hollow.
- Susie’s teenager actress is none other than legendary 60’s starlet Sandra Dee (Gidget [1959], The Dunwich Horror [1970]).
- Even if she is a Negro, I don't see how a White guy (played by 60’s teen heart-throb Troy Donahue, Cry-Baby [1990]) would turn down a woman as uncommonly beautiful as Sarah Jane.
- I left out the part where Susie has a crush on her mom’s boyfriend Steve, then gets angry because her mom Lora is marrying him.
- Sarah Jane’s actress convincingly played a biracial person because she IS biracial: Susan Kohner is Bohemian Jewish and Mexican.
- You’d never know a Black person was in the movie based on the widescreen DVD cover: They put 3 people on the front and only 2 were principal actors. You don’t see Sarah Jane or Annie unless you look at the back.
- LESSON LEARNED: Always tell your lover what you really are. If they don’t love you, then it was not meant to be.
