Imitation of Life (1959 film)

Imitation of Life (1959) is an American drama film directed by Douglas Sirk, produced by Ross Hunter and released by Universal International. It was Sirk's final Hollywood film and dealt with issues of race, class and gender. Imitation of Life is the second film adaptation of Fannie Hurst's 1933 novel of the same name. The first, directed by John M. Stahl, was released in 1934. The film's top-billed stars are Lana Turner and John Gavin.

The cast also features Robert Alda, Sandra Dee, Susan Kohner, Juanita Moore, and Dan O'Herlihy, in alphabetical order. Kohner and Moore each received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Supporting Actress for their performances. Kohner won the Globe award. Gospel music star Mahalia Jackson appears as a church choir soloist.

In 2015, the United States Library of Congress selected Imitation of Life (1959) for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The 1934 version of Imitation of Life was added to the National Film Registry in 2005.

Plot
In 1947, widowed mother Lora Meredith dreams of becoming a famous Broadway actress. Losing track of her young daughter Susie at a crowded Coney Island beach, she asks a stranger, Steve Archer, to help her find the girl. Meanwhile, Susie has been taken up and looked after by Annie Johnson, who is also a single mother. Her daughter Sarah Jane is about Susie's age. Lora is reunited with Susie, and the two women talk.

The Merediths are white and the Johnsons are Black, but Lora shows that she has assumed that Sarah Jane is white and not Annie's daughter, but being cared for by her. The girl reflects a multiracial background and has fair skin and features that would allow her to pass as white. Sarah Jane rejects being identified as Black.

In return for Annie's kindness, Lora temporarily takes in the mother and daughter, as Annie is looking for work. Annie persuades Lora to let her stay and look after the household so the other woman can pursue an acting career. Lora becomes a star of stage comedies, with Allen Loomis as her agent and David Edwards as her chief playwright, and lover.

Although Lora had earlier begun a relationship with Steve, whom she met at Coney Island, their courtship falls apart because he does not support the demands of her career. Lora's concentration on her career limits her time with her daughter Susie, who turns to Annie for emotional comfort. Annie and Sarah Jane have their own problems, as the girl is struggling with her identity.

Eleven years later, Lora is a highly regarded Broadway star living in a luxurious home near New York City. Annie continues to live with her, serving as nanny, housekeeper, confidante, and best friend. After rejecting David's latest script, and his marriage proposal, Lora takes a role in a dramatic play, to great success.

At the show's after-party, she encounters Steve, whom she has not seen in a decade. The two slowly begin rekindling their relationship. Steve is reintroduced to Annie and the girls Susie and Sarah Jane, who are now teenagers. When Lora is signed to star in an Italian movie, she entrusts Steve to watch after Susie. The teenager develops an unrequited crush on her mother's boyfriend.

Sarah Jane begins dating a white teenager, but he abuses her after learning she is black. Sometime later, she again passes for white to get a job performing at a seedy nightclub, but tells her mother she is working at the library. When Annie learns the truth, she goes to the club to claim her daughter; Sarah Jane is fired. Sarah Jane's rejection of her mother takes a physical and mental toll on Annie.

When Lora returns from Italy, Sarah Jane has run away from home. She left Annie a note saying if her mother truly cares about her, she will leave her alone and let her live her life.

Lora asks Steve to hire a private detective to find Sarah Jane. The detective finds her living and working in California as a white woman under an assumed name. Annie, becoming weaker and more depressed by the day, flies out to see her daughter a last time and say goodbye. When they meet, Annie apologizes for loving her daughter too much and wishes her the best. She pleads with Sarah Jane to promise that if she ever needs help and cannot reach Annie, she will contact Lora. They share an embrace.

When Sarah Jane's roommate interrupts them, she assumes Annie is a maid. Annie says that she is a former nanny of "Miss Linda," Sarah Jane's new name, allowing her daughter's new identity to stand.

After returning to New York, Annie become bedridden. Lora and Susie look after her. Susie is very upset to learn that Steve and her mother plan to marry. Annie tells Lora of the girl's crush. After a confrontation with her mother, Susie decides to leave New York and go to school in Denver to get away.

Soon Annie dies and Lora weeps by her side. She gives Annie the lavish funeral that her friend had wanted: in a large church, complete with a gospel choir, and followed by an elaborate traditional funeral procession with a band and four white horses drawing the hearse. Just before the procession sets off, Sarah Jane arrive, pushing through the crowd of mourners to throw herself on her mother's casket. She begs her mother's forgiveness, saying, "I killed my own mother!" Lora takes Sarah Jane to her limousine to join her, Susie, and Steve as the procession slowly travels through a city street. A large African-American crowd, dressed in the finery of their lodges and associations, silently watches.

History and production
The screenplay was written by Eleanore Griffin and Allan Scott. Together with discussions with director Douglas Sirk, they decided to make changes to the story to reflect the society of 1959. As a result, the plot of the 1959 film differs from the 1933 novel and the 1934 film.

In the novel, the "Lora" character, Bea Pullman, became successful by commercial production of her maid Delilah's family waffle recipe, a pancake recipe in the 1934 film version. As a result, Bea, the white businesswoman, becomes rich. She offers Delilah 20% of the profits, but the woman declines and chooses to remain Bea's assistant. In the novel Delilah's daughter Peola leaves the area for good. In both the films, the Black daughter returns for her mother's funeral, showing remorse. Molly Hiro described the 1959 scene as "virtually identical" to that of 1934.

In the 1950s there was increased activism in the Civil Rights Movement, with milestones such as the Brown v. Board of Education US Supreme Court case, and the Montgomery bus boycott gaining national attention. In addition, more women had been working during and after World War II. At the same time, the writers acknowledged that racial discrimination and its inequities were still part of society.

They created a plot line in which Lora becomes a Broadway star by her own talents, with Annie assisting by being paid to serve as a nanny for Lora's child and general household manager. Producer Ross Hunter also was cannily aware that these plot changes would enable Lana Turner to model an array of glamorous costumes and real jewels, something that would appeal to a female audience. Lana Turner's wardrobe for Imitation of Life cost over $1.078 million, making it one of the most expensive in cinema history to that time.

Although many actresses, most of them white, were screen-tested for the Sarah Jane 1959 role, Susan Kohner won it. She is of mixed Irish, Mexican, and Czech-Jewish ancestry. Her mother was actress Lupita Tovar, born in Mexico, and her father was Paul Kohner, a Czech-Jewish immigrant.

Karin Dicker made her debut in this film as the young Sarah Jane. Noted Black gospel singer Mahalia Jackson received "presenting" billing for her one scene, performing a version of "Trouble of the World" at Annie's funeral service.

Release and critical reaction
Sirk's Imitation of Life premiered in Chicago on March 17, 1959, followed by Los Angeles on March 20 and New York City on April 17. Following its New York opening, it became number one in the US for two weeks before Universal put the film into general release on April 30.

Though it was not well-reviewed upon its original release and was viewed as inferior to the original 1934 film version – many critics derided the film as a "soap opera" – Imitation of Life was the sixth highest-grossing film of 1959, grossing $6.4 million. It was Universal-International's top-grossing film that year. Hiro wrote that in contrast to the novel, this film and the previous film had received "far more critical attention". With a wider audience, the second film became "more famous" than the first.

Both Moore and Kohner were nominated for the 1959 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the 1959 Golden Globe award for Best Supporting Actress. While neither actress won the Oscar, Kohner won the Golden Globe for her performance; she also won a Globe award for Best New Actress. Moore won second place in the category of Top Female Supporting Performance at the 1959 Laurel Awards, and the film won Top Drama. Douglas Sirk was nominated for the 1959 Directors Guild of America Award.

Since the late 20th century, Imitation of Life has been re-evaluated by critics. It has been considered a masterpiece of Sirk's American career. Emanuel Levy has written "One of the four masterpieces directed in the 1950s, the visually lush, meticulously designed and powerfully acted Imitation of Life was the jewel in Sirk's crown, ending his Hollywood's career before he returned to his native Germany." Sirk provided the Annie–Sarah Jane relationship in his version with more screen time and more intensity than the characters were given in the 1930s versions of the story. Critics later commented that Juanita Moore and Susan Kohner stole the film from Turner. Sirk said that he had deliberately and subversively undercut Turner to draw focus toward the issues of the two black characters.

Sirk's treatment of racial and class issues is admired for what he caught of the times. Writing in 1997, Rob Nelson said,

"Basically, we're left to intuit that the black characters (and the movie) are themselves products of '50s-era racism – which explains the film's perspective, but hardly makes it less dizzying. Possibly thinking of W.E.B. Du Bois's notion of black American double-consciousness, critic Molly Haskell once described Imitation's double-vision: 'The mixed-race girl's agonizing quest for her identity is not seen from her point of view as much as it is mockingly reflected in the fun house mirrors of the culture from which she is hopelessly alienated.'"

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 82% of 33 reviews are positive, and the average rating is 7.8/10. The site's consensus reads, "Douglas Sirk enriches this lush remake of Imitation of Life with racial commentary and a sharp edge, yielding a challenging melodrama with the power to devastate." On Metacritic — which assigns a weighted mean score — the film has a score of 87 out of 100 based on 16 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

In 2015, BBC Online ranked the film as the 37th greatest American movie ever made, based on a survey of film critics.

Home media
Both the 1934 and 1959 films were issued in 2003 on a double-sided DVD from Universal Studios. A two-disc set of the films was issued by Universal in 2008. A Blu-ray with both films was released in April 2015. This edition has been re-mastered, and is not identical with earlier DVD releases.

Madman Entertainment in Australia released a three-disc DVD set, including the 1934 film version, as well as a video essay on the 1959 film by Sam Staggs.

In popular culture
Todd Haynes' Far from Heaven (2002) is an homage to Sirk's work, in particular All That Heaven Allows (1955) and Imitation of Life.

The 1969 Diana Ross & the Supremes song "I'm Livin' in Shame" is based upon this film.

The 2001 R.E.M. song "Imitation of Life" took its title from the film, though none of the band members had ever watched it.