Film Review
Under King Vidor's masterful direction, Olive Higgins Prouty's popular
novel
Stella Dallas is
reinterpreted as a sobering and poignant reflection on the class divisions
that existed in America in the 1930s. It is also
one of the most potent of the great Hollywood weepies,
its Kleenex-soaking impact bolstered by a knock-out performance from Barbara Stanwyck.
The actress considered this her favourite role, the one that earned her
the first of her four Oscar nominations (this time, she lost out to
Luise Rainer for her work on
The
Good Earth).
This was the film that made Barbara Stanwyck a star and the one in
which, arguably, she gave her greatest performance. Yet she very
nearly didn't get the part. From the outset, director King Vidor
felt Stanwyck would be ideal for the role, but producer Samuel Goldwyn
refused even to consider her, since he felt she was too young and
totally lacking in sex appeal. Fierce lobbying by the actress's
agent (a certain Zeppo Marx) and close friend Joel McCrea persuaded
Goldwyn to relent and give her the role. As it turned out, this
was to be one of the most inspired pieces of casting of any Sam Goldwyn
film.
Previously known for playing feisty, cynical and morally suspect
characters, most notably in Frank Capra's
The Miracle Woman (1931),
Stanwyck was perfectly suited to play the complex self-destructive
mother Stella Dallas. We never quite know what really motivates
Stella until the very last shot of the film. Is she as devoted a
mother as she seems, or merely someone who has a perverse desire to
hurt herself, or others, through an inexplicable gesture of
martyrdom? Stanwyck keeps us guessing right to the end but gives
us the answer just before the credits roll. The glimmer of a
smile and a warm glow in her eyes show us the supreme satisfaction of a
woman who has achieved her life's ambition.
You probably have to be a mum to feel the full significance
of this outcome.
Stella Dallas is soap, but it
is soap that you can readily watch without feeling ashamed of
yourself. There are one or two awkward plot contrivances but
overall the story is told with restraint and genuine feeling, without
the heavy-handed mawkish excesses that ruin many comparable
films. Stanwyck ekes every last drop of sentiment out of Prouty's
story without ever crossing the line into schmaltz, and in this she is
ably supported by her female co-stars Anne Shirley and Barbara
O'Neil. The male characters are portrayed less vividly - John
Boles looks like a poor man's Clark Gable, completely eclipsed in
his scenes with Stanwyck. Strangely, the fact that the menfolk
leave so little impression actually helps the story, since it renders
their female counterparts more powerful. It is the women who are
the prime movers in the narrative, whilst the men are almost passive
on-lookers. The reason why Stella's fate is so moving is because
it is one that she chooses for herself; no man has forced it upon
her. Within the constraints of her social position, she
is the master (or rather mistress) of her own destiny -
a surprisingly powerful feminist sentiment for an American film of this
era.
© James Travers 2010
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Film Synopsis
Stella Martin is a modest working girl who lives with her parents and
brother in a small Massachusetts mill town. She has fanciful
notions of marriage and falls instantly in love when she meets Stephen
Dallas, a handsome ex-millionaire who now has to earn his living after
his father's suicide. For a while, Stella and Stephen are
happy. But not long after the birth of their daughter, Laurel,
Stephen becomes disillusioned with his wife. He soon realises
that he has married beneath him and, having seen Stella cavorting with
a drunk, he leaves her. Stella may not have been the ideal wife
but she is determined to be a successful mother and so selflessly
devotes herself to bringing up her daughter. Years later,
on the threshold of womanhood, Laurel notices her mother's vulgarity
and is ashamed of the way she dresses and behaves. By contrast,
her father is a sophisticated and cultured man, a fully paid-up member
of the set to which she aspires to belong. What is Laurel to do
when her father invites her to leave her mother and live with him and
his new wife in their comfortable mansion?
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.