"Imitation of Life" and the Self-Fulfilling Pity Prophecy

When I was a kid in the 1960s, if the subject of a mixed-race relationship came up, my parents had a standard response:

"I feel sorry for the children."

Why? I would ask.

"Because they won't be accepted by whites or blacks."

Who says?

"Society."

What is society?

"People."

People? People like us?

"Yes."

Then why can't we change that? I would wonder. But it didn't seem like something my parents wanted to go into. And truthfully, the conversation didn't come up very often. But I watch a movie like "Imitation of Life" today -- either the 1934 or 1959 version -- and I remember that frustratingly circular piece of ill-logic: Nothing can be done because nothing can be done.

Fannie Hurst wrote "Imitation of Life" after taking a trip or two with African-American writer Zora Neale Hurston, who briefly worked as Hurst's secretary, and one assumes that what Hurst saw on those trips, as well as their relationship, influenced her writing. Racism still exists in America to a frightening degree in 2013, so one can only imagine what it was like to travel as an educated African-American woman seventy years ago.

To audiences, "Imitation of Life" can be polarizing. Is the story a soapy, oversimplified look at race, played out by a cardboard Betty Crocker and Aunt Jemima? Or is it a heartbreaking story of mother love and misplaced pride?

The story still fascinates people. I've written a syndicated TV and movie newspaper column for decades, and for years the movie I got the most questions about was "Imitation of Life," mostly from women who saw the 1959 version as teenagers and who still had vivid memories of it.

Personally, I think watching the 1959 version of "Imitation of Life" is like drowning in satin. Ross Hunter's production is ultra-plush, all Technicolor and CinemaScope and Lana Turner's wardrobe. The movie certainly has its fans, and if you are one of them you will want to check out "Born to Be Hurt" by Sam Staggs. It's a history of/meditation on "Imitation of Life" that features slightly fawning interviews with cast and crew of the 1959 film, including Juanita Moore and Susan Kohner. One critic calls it "gloriously digressive," and it is that, no doubt.  

Although neither film is totally faithful to Hurst's book, the 1934 film seems to come closer, and it's the one I prefer.

We open in the home of Bea Pullman (Claudette Colbert), a struggling widow who's juggling single motherhood with selling maple syrup door to door.

The paths of Bea and Delilah Johnson (Louise Beavers) cross when Delilah and her daughter Peola come to the house by mistake. We first see Delilah through a barrier -- Bea's screen door.

But she and Bea connect, and Delilah is so desperate for a job that she talks Bea into to hiring her in exchange for only room and board for her and her daughter. Peola and Bea's daughter Jessie become friends and Bea's household worries are solved.

When the two girls start to school, Peola's life choice becomes heartbreakingly clear-cut -- pass as white by denying your mother and your heritage, or live a life as someone who is Lesser.

"Folks just don't want Peola," Delilah tells Bea. "Her pappy was a very, very light colored man."

The fortunes of Bea and Delilah change when Bea combines the syrup she sells with Delilah's unique pancake recipe. They open a restaurant on the boardwalk, and it's successful, but customer Elmer Smith (Ned Sparks! Yay!) gives Bea a million-dollar idea -- package the pancake mix and sell it in stores.

The same day, during a rainstorm, Delilah takes a raincoat and galoshes to Peola at school. The teacher looks at Delilah quizzically as she asks to see her daughter and Peola hides behind a book. Then a murmur goes through the classroom -- Peola is black! Delilah approaches the teacher and says a line filled with double meaning.

Delilah: Teacher, has she been passing?

Teacher: Passing? Yes.


Delilah runs home in tears, and tells her mother, "I don't want to be black! I don't want to be black!" But Delilah chooses to accept society's verdict even if Peola doesn't. And that shapes her vision of what kind of life Peola will have. For instance, when Bea and Delilah fantasize about making a fortune, each of them have very different dreams for their children:

Bea: I could send Jessie away to college.

Delilah: And Peola -- she wouldn't have to do housework for nobody.

Elmer becomes the company's business manager. Delilah is given a 20 percent share of the company, and she quickly becomes very well off. But she won't leave Bea and Jessie. When Delilah builds a Manhattan mansion, Delilah lives in very nice downstairs quarters -- but when there's a party upstairs, it's kind of an unspoken rule that she and Peola aren't invited. But hey! They can stand outside and listen to the music. ("That orchestra's pretty good for a bunch of white boys," Delilah says.)

Bea's daughter Jessie (played as a young adult by Rochelle Hudson) attends an exclusive school and lives a life of parties and rich beaus. How much must it kill Peola (played as an adult by Fredi Washington) to see Jessie, someone whose privileges she could also have except for the fact that her mother is black?

Around this time, there's a much less interesting plot element -- the romance between Bea and ichthyologist Stephen Archer (Warren William). There's a lot of labored humor about what an ichthyologist is -- including much laughter at Delilah as she struggles with the term. Then Jessie gets a crush on Stephen. Bea doesn't want to hurt the mother-daughter relationship, so she and Stephen part -- temporarily, at least. But compared to the story of Delilah and Peola it's pretty weak tea.

To please her mother, Peola attends an African-American college in Virginia, but when she drops out and runs away to work in a restaurant where she can pass as white, Bea and Delilah "rescue" her and bring her home.

Delilah: What's my baby want?

Peola: I want to be white, like I look.

Delilah: Peola!

Peola: Look at me. Am I not white? Isn't that a white girl?

Delilah tells her it's the Lord's work -- "He made you black, honey. Don't be tellin' him his business. Accept it. Do that for your mammy."

But Peola leaves for good, with instructions to her mother to ignore her if she sees her on the street. Delilah's health declines, and on her deathbed she asks to see a framed photo of her daughter. Then she says another nice line of dialogue bursting with double meaning:

Delilah (looking at photo): They never done her justice.


Then Delilah gets her only wish -- an elaborate, ornate funeral.
 
Delilah becomes a kind of Servant Emeritus to Bea, still talking dialect, calling her "Miss Bea" and offering to rub her feet after a hard day even though they're wealthy business partners. But through her devotion to and heartbreak over Peola, Delilah remains easily the most well-rounded role Louise Beavers ever played. Delilah still has her stereotyped side, but you can't help but remember the line attributed to African-American actress Hattie McDaniel: "I'd rather play a maid than be one."

As I watch "Imitation of Life" 70 years after its initial release, it still has the power to infuriate me. I always try to write about movies as I find them, not as I think they should be, and for better or worse "Imitation of Life" reflects relations between the races as they were in the 1930s -- and the next few decades, for that matter.

Today, as much as some people would like to deny it, we live in a more diverse age. Our sex symbols, our athletes and our heroes -- even our president -- all reflect that diversity. Like many other families, ours includes mixed-race members -- loved ones who are accepted as equals without question. To my kids, they're simply cousins. And my children will never hear or see me or my wife, or anyone else in our family, distance ourselves from them through pity.

Here are complete credits for "Imitation of Life" and a trailer for segregated audiences:

The Polly Walters Film Festival: "Young Bride" and "American Madness"

Polly Walters and Joan Blondell in "Bleaches"

Of all the actors and actresses who appeared in 1930s movies, Polly Walters (1913-1994) was certainly one of them.

Although she appeared in small roles in only a handful of movies between 1931-32, Walters made an impression with her blonde hair, deadpan style and Betty Boop-ish, singsong voice. She was usually a working-class girl -- a waitress, a hotel maid, a manicurist, a switchboard operator -- with a working-class name like Mabel, Ethel, Daisy or Gladys.

Born Maude Walters in Zanesville, Ohio, our heroine trained as a dancer and made her way to Broadway, appearing in several productions during the late 1920s. Then came a stage stint as Eddie Cantor's straightwoman before Warner Bros. signed her to a contract in 1931.

At Warner's, Walters appeared in three James Cagney films -- "Taxi," "Smart Money" and "Blonde Crazy." In "Blonde Crazy," she plays a hotel maid who warns another maid -- the film's female lead, Joan Blondell -- to stay away from Cagney, as a bellhop who knows all the angles:



Walters also appeared in Warner films with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. ("Union Depot"), Loretta Young ("Play-Girl"), Edward G. Robinson ("Five Star Final") and Warren William ("The Mouthpiece" and "Beauty and the Boss").

For the most part, her Warner roles were bits. It wasn't until she was lent out to other studios that Walters played roles that were actually important to the plot.

In the 1932 RKO film "Young Bride," for instance, she is Daisy, the streetwise best friend of innocent heroine Allie (Helen Twelvetrees). They work together as librarians, and Daisy introduces Allie to nogoodnik Charlie (Eric Linden). Allie ends up marrying Charlie while Daisy ends up with Pete (Cliff "Ukelele Ike" Edwards), and doing lots of heavy partying:



Then in one of her last films, Frank Capra's "American Madness," released by Columbia the same year, Walters's switchboard operator character starts the gossip that threatens to bring down a bank headed by honest Thomas Dickson (Walter Huston):



After appearances in only 17 films, Walters left Hollywood in 1933 and went back to Broadway, appearing in a production called "She Loves Me Not" with Burgess Meredith. After that, there was talk of returning to Hollywood, but nothing materialized. From 1936-37 Walters was on stage in "Red, Hot and Blue" with Jimmy Durante, Ethel Merman and a young Bob Hope. Then came roles in plays that ran only a few performances -- her last work was in a 1942 production called "The Life of Reilly" that closed quickly.

For the next 50-odd years, Walters lived a quiet life in New York City -- she had no other film, play or TV credits. Maybe she found a job as a switchboard operator.  

Warren William Douchebag Theatre: "The Match King" and "Skyscraper Souls"

In the 1932 film "The Match King," Warren William has a clandestine meeting with his lover, played by Glenda Farrell. Object: money transfer.

The evidence is right before your eyes, ladies and gentlemen -- even Glenda Farrell, the woman who played hard-boiled dames in dozens of Warner Bros. movies, falls under the spell of Warren William when he is in full douchebag mode!

"Hey, good looking," he said
to the mirror

Little wonder, then, that for the first half of the 1930s, Warren William was your go-to guy for douchebags, whether they were shyster attorneys ("The Mouthpiece"), bogus doctors ("Bedside"), phony mentalists ("The Mind Reader"), lascivious bosses ("Employees' Entrance") or crafty campaign managers ("The Dark Horse").  

In "The Match King," William's character is based on a real-life douchebag -- Ivar Kreuger, a swindler who built a financial empire on matchsticks before committing suicide. Kreuger's initial construction business was called Kreuger and Toll, and the scriptwriters combine those names to give us William's character, Paul Kroll.

Kroll is a small-time chiseler who's working as a street sweeper in Chicago when his relatives in Sweden ask him to visit. He's bragged to them about his non-existent wealth and success and they want him to help save the family match company. Kroll's advice is to be aggressive -- to start buying up rival match companies and create a monopoly.

Only one family member is aware of Kroll's real background -- his cousin Erik (Hardie Albright). But Kroll convinces him of his plan by delivering what would become a staple in these movies -- the speech letting us know that William's character may be a douchebag, but he is a visionary douchebag:



Through his wheeling and dealing, Kroll ends up controlling a match monopoly that is practically worldwide, but you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs. He cheats investors and builds an empire on debt. And when an eccentric chemist invents a non-disposable match that lights repeatedly, Kroll has the man committed. On the other hand, to show us that the guy does have a heart, he woos and loses a fickle actress (Lili Damita).

Then comes the stock market crash of 1929, and to keep the empire afloat Kroll buys counterfeit bonds from a forger (Harold Huber). Then Kroll offers to give the forger a lift in his boat:



In Paris, Kroll realizes that the jig, she is up. The bonds are discovered to be fake, and he is confronted by his investors. He steps onto a balcony, where all his misdeeds conveniently rattle through his head:

In "Skyscraper Souls," made the same year, William is financier David Dwight, who has just built an edifice even taller than the Empire State Building. But, like Kroll, he has built his empire on debt. And his misdeeds aren't all financial -- he's creeping a young secretary (Maureen O'Sullivan) while his loyal woman Friday (Verree Teasdale) is waiting for him to get a divorce from his absentee wife (Hedda Hopper in her pre-gossip columnist days). But Dwight doesn't want to divorce his wife -- it's easier to keep giving her checks and staying "free" to wander.

There are also a lot of subplots in "Skyscraper Souls," including a love story between a tender-hearted jeweler (Jean Hersholt) and a prostitute (Anita Page) and a love story between O'Sullivan and Norman Foster as a bank teller. And Dwight's scheme with another investor to take control of the building by running up the bank stock and then selling it short affects almost all the cast, including Gregory Ratoff as a dress merchant and Wallace Ford as a radio announcer.

But "Skyscraper Souls" revolves around Dwight, and here's the obligatory douchebag-with-vision speech:



Funny how that speech also applies to today's friction between the 1% and everyone else, isn't it?

The douchebag's comeuppance in this case comes when he is ready to skip the country with O'Sullivan in tow. Teasdale, as his longtime companion, has taken O'Sullivan under her wing and she won't stand for it because she doesn't want Dwight to ruin someone else's life:



By wiping her prints from the pistol, William's character demonstrates his good side once again. But there is more tragedy ahead:


With the advent of the production code in 1935, William started being cast as good guys, often detectives. He played Perry Mason in several films and played the Lone Wolf, aka Michael Lanyard, in a series of films into the 1940s. So William left his douchebag days behind. But they were fun while they lasted.

Here are the credits for "Skyscraper Souls." And here are the full credits for "The Match King," and a preview:



  

"Three on a Match," or Ladies and the Tramp

The 1932 film "Three on a Match" traces the lives of three women friends from their school days to adulthood. It also offers an interesting look at three actresses on different career trajectories, with the one in the least showy role going on to become the queen of the Warner Bros. lot into the early 1950s. 

The story is by Kubec Glasmon and John Bright, the same duo who gave us "The Public Enemy," and the movie begins in the same territory -- a working-class urban neighborhood right around the end of World War I. This time around, however, the plot centers on three girls -- Mary, Vivian and Ruth. Ruth is the goody-goody kid, Vivian hangs upside down on the swings to let the boys see her bloomers, and Mary is voted most likely to be out back smoking with the boys.

Fast forward thirteen years, and the girls have grown up -- Mary into Joan Blondell, Ruth into Bette Davis and Vivian into Ann Dvorak. Ruth is a responsible office worker, Mary has gone from a stint in reform school to a life as a good-hearted showgirl and Vivian is married to wealthy attorney Robert (Warren William). Ironically, even though she has the most to be thankful for, including a young son, Vivian is the least content:



What Vivian is looking for is a little hotcha, and she gets it in the form of Lyle Talbot as Michael, a smooth gigolo-hood. They meet on a cruise ship, introduced by Mary -- Michael is there seeing off some friends and Vivian is going to Europe with Junior. At least that's her plan until Michael sweeps her off her feet:



The trunk belongs to Vivian. She's getting off in more ways than one.

And before you can say "sexually transmitted disease," she and Michael are shacking up, with neglected Junior along for the ride, a towhead in tow. Robert is going crazy trying to track them down, and with Mary's help, Junior and father are reunited. Vivian, on the other hand, is sliding steadily downhill, hanging out with Michael's hood friends (including Humphrey Bogart and Jack LaRue) and developing a taste for nose candy. (In one great moment Bogart wipes his nose dismissively as he refers to her.)

Meanwhile, Mary and Robert are getting cozy, and Ruth has become Junior's nanny. Mary and Robert marry as soon as his divorce from Vivian is final. Vivian and Michael have fallen on hard times, and Michael hatches a plan -- they'll kidnap Junior for ransom from Robert. Vivian is a reluctant accomplice, and when the heat is on, the hoods -- including Bogart, La Rue and Allen Jenkins -- make plans to kill the boy. Dvorak learns of this and in a scene that's still compelling after 80 years, she takes matters into her own hands:



There's a kind of perverse melodramatic beauty in those last scenes, from the jump to Junior's painfully lame acting to the casual tossing of the match. Tramp's dead and all's well!

Davis's performance -- and her character -- are pretty colorless. She was still a couple of years away from her breakthrough role in "Of Human Bondage." Blondell is pretty much playing the same good-hearted dame she would play through the 1960s and as late as 1978, in "Grease." Dvorak has the showiest role here, but that wouldn't last long, thanks to her battles with Warner Bros., her desire for independence and her subsequent move to England.