Stella Dallas (1937 film) - Wikipedia

Stella Dallas (1937 film) - Wikipedia

Stella Dallas (1937 film)

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Stella Dallas
Original theatrical poster
Directed by	King Vidor
Written by	Harry Wagstaff Gribble Gertrude Purcell (dramatization) Sarah Y. Mason Victor Heerman (screenplay) Joe Bigelow (uncredited)
Based on	Stella Dallas by Olive Higgins Prouty
Produced by	Samuel Goldwyn
Starring	Barbara Stanwyck John Boles Anne Shirley
Cinematography	Rudolph Maté
Edited by	Sherman Todd
Music by	Alfred Newman
Production company	Samuel Goldwyn Productions
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date	August 6, 1937
Running time	106 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$2 million (theatrical rentals)[1][2]

Stella Dallas is a 1937 American drama film based on the 1923 Olive Higgins Prouty novel of the same name. It was directed by King Vidor and stars Barbara Stanwyck, John Boles and Anne Shirley. The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role and Best Actress in a Supporting Role.^[3]

The film is the second film adaptation of the novel; the first was a 1925 silent film. The film was remade in 1990 as Stella. In February 2020, the film was shown at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival during a retrospective of Vidor's career.^[4]

Plot[edit]

Stella Martin, the daughter of a mill worker in a post-World War I Massachusetts factory town, is determined to better herself. She sets her sights on mill executive Stephen Dallas and catches him at an emotionally vulnerable time. Stephen's father killed himself after losing his fortune. Penniless, Stephen disappeared from high society, intending to marry his fiancée, Helen Morrison, once he was financially able to support her. However, just as he reaches his goal, he reads in the newspaper the announcement of her wedding and he marries Stella.

A year later, their daughter, Laurel, is born. To Stella's great surprise, she discovers she has a strong maternal instinct. Even when she is out dancing and partying, she cannot help but think about her child. As Laurel grows up, Stella's ambition and scheming to rise socially is redirected to her daughter.

Stephen dotes on Laurel as well, but she is the only bond between husband and wife. He tries to help Stella become more refined but without success. He also strongly disapproves of her continuing friendship with the vulgar Ed Munn. Finally, when Stephen receives a promotion that requires him to move to New York, Stella tells him he can go without her or Laurel. They separate but remain married. Laurel stays with her mother but visits her father periodically.

Years later, Stephen runs into Helen, now a wealthy widow with three sons. They renew their acquaintance. Laurel is invited to stay at Helen's mansion. She gets along very well with Helen and her sons. Stephen asks Stella for a divorce, but she turns him down.

Stella takes Laurel to a fancy resort, where Laurel meets Richard Grosvenor III, and they fall in love. However, when Stella makes her first appearance after she recovered from an illness, she becomes the target of derision for her vulgarity though she is unaware of it. Embarrassed for her mother, Laurel insists they leave at once without telling her why. On the train back, Stella overhears the truth.

Stella goes to talk with Helen. After learning that Helen and Stephen would marry if they could, she agrees to a divorce and asks for Laurel to go live with them. Helen realizes the reason for the request and agrees.

When Laurel learns of the arrangement, she refuses to put up with it and returns home. However, Stella has been notified by a telegram and is ready for her. Stella pretends that she wants Laurel off her hands so that she can marry Ed Munn and travel to South America. Laurel runs crying back to her father.

Later, Laurel and Richard get married. Stella watches them exchange their wedding vows from the city street through a window. Her presence goes unnoticed in the darkness and among the other curious bystanders. She then slips away in the rain and is alone but triumphant in having arranged her daughter's happiness.

Cast[edit]

• Barbara Stanwyck as Stella Dallas, née Martin
• John Boles as Stephen Dallas
• Anne Shirley as Laurel Dallas
• Barbara O'Neil as Helen Morrison, later Helen Dallas
• Alan Hale as Ed Munn
• Marjorie Main as Mrs. Martin, Stella's mother
• Edmund Elton as Mr. "Pop" Martin, Stella's father
• Tim Holt as Richard Grosvenor III
• George Walcott as Charlie Martin
• Lillian Yarbo as Gladys (uncredited)

Production[edit]

Tim Holt, the son of Jack Holt, had his first proper part in a film with Stella Dallas. He played the same role that was performed by another film star's son, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., in the 1925 version.^[5]

Reception[edit]

Critical response[edit]

In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Frank S. Nugent wrote that the character of Stella Dallas, first portrayed on the screen 12 years earlier, was outdated but that the film's theme of motherly love endured: "[W]e cannot accept Stella Dallas in 1937. She is a caricature all the way. ... Stella, through the years, was changeless, but, where her daughter was concerned, she was eternal: the selfless mother." Nugent praised Stanwyck's performance: "Miss Stanwyck's portrayal is as courageous as it is fine. Ignoring the flattery of make-up man and camera, she plays Stella as Mrs. Prouty drew her—coarse, cheap, common ... And yet magnificent as a mother."^[6]

Variety praised the film but mentioned some inconsistencies, such as the fact that Stella and her daughter both wear clothes made by Stella but that the daughter is always dressed in good taste while the mother is not.^[7]

Maclean's criticized the outlandish costumes worn by the title character but praised the story as relevant for any decade, concluding that "the picture is handled with honesty, restraint and feeling."^[8]

The film holds an 89% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on ten reviews.^[9]

Accolades[edit]

Award	Category	Nominee(s)	Result
Academy Awards[10]	Best Actress	Barbara Stanwyck	Nominated
	Best Supporting Actress	Anne Shirley	Nominated

The character Stella Dallas was nominated for inclusion on the American Film Institute's 2003 list AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains,^[11] and is considered by many as among Stanwyck's signature roles.^[12] Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa cited Stella Dallas as one of his favorite films.^[13][14]

References[edit]

1. ^ Madsen, Axel (2015). Stanwyck: A Biography. ISBN 978-1-5040-0861-7. Released in August 1937, Stella Dallas grossed more than $2 million.
2. ^ Reid, John Howard (2012). 140 All-Time Must-See Movies for Film Lovers Now Available On DVD. ISBN 978-1-105-75295-7. UA's top domestic box office hit of 1937, with gross rentals close to $2 million.
3. ^ "The 10th Academy Awards (1938) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Archived from the original on July 6, 2011. Retrieved August 9, 2011.
4. ^ "Berlinale 2020: Retrospective "King Vidor"". Berlinale. Retrieved February 28, 2020.
5. ^ Schallert, Edwin (March 26, 1937). "Romance of Sonja Henie and Power to Continue in Thin Ice" Film: Louis Borell Will Portray Grand Duke". Los Angeles Times.
6. ^ Nugent, Frank S. (August 6, 1937). "The Screen". The New York Times. p. 21.
7. ^ Stella Dallas - Variety
8. ^ Shots and Angles | October 1, 1937
9. ^ Rotten Tomatoes Stella Dallas (1937)
10. ^ "10th Academy Awards". Oscars.org. Retrieved February 21, 2023.
11. ^ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains Nominees" (PDF). Retrieved August 6, 2016.
12. ^ Roger Ebert Utterly Modern: The Charisma of Barbara Stanwyck
13. ^ Lee Thomas-Mason. "From Stanley Kubrick to Martin Scorsese: Akira Kurosawa once named his top 100 favourite films of all time". Far Out. Far Out Magazine. Retrieved September 20, 2022.
14. ^ "Akira Kurosawa's Top 100 Movies!". Archived from the original on 27 March 2010.

Further reading[edit]

• Williams, Linda. "'Something Else besides a Mother': 'Stella Dallas' and the Maternal Melodrama," Cinema Journal Vol. 24, No. 1 (Autumn, 1984), pp. 2–27 in JSTOR
• Stevenson, Diane. "Three Versions of Stella Dallas" for Jeffrey Crouse (editor), Film International, Issue 54, Volume, 9. Number 6 (2011), pp. 30–40.

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STELLA DALLAS

Post author:eenableadmin

Post published:August 5, 2019

Post category:Uncategorized

STELLA DALLAS (director: King Vidor; screenwriters: Sarah Y. Mason/Victor Heerman/from the novel by Olive Higgins Prouty; cinematographer: Rudolph Maté; editor: Sherman Todd; music: Alfred Newman; cast: Barbara Stanwyck (Stella Dallas), John Boles (Stephen Dallas), Anne Shirley (Laurel Dallas), Barbara O’Neil (Helen Morrison), Alan Hale (Ed Munn), Marjorie Main (Mrs. Martin), George Walcott (Charlie Martin), Ann Shoemaker (Margaret Phillibrown), Tim Holt (Richard Grosvenor), Olin Howard (Factory Clerk); Runtime: 106; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Samuel Goldwyn/Merritt Hulburd; Warner Home Video (United Artists); 1937)

“Barbara Stanwyck gives a sensational brassy performance as the ambitious poor girl trying to make a better life for herself by marrying above her class.“

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

A classic “women’s picture” skilfully directed as a tearjerker by King Vidor(“War and Peace”/”Man Without A Star”/”Ruby Gentry”). It’s a superior remake of Henry King’s silent version of 1925. Writers Sarah Y. Mason and Victor Heerman base it on the novel by Olive Higgins Prouty. Barbara Stanwyck gives a sensational brassy performance as the ambitious poor girl trying to make a better life for herself by marrying above her class.

In 1919, Stella Martin (Barbara Stanwyck), the uncouth but attractive young daughter of a mill worker in the factory town of Millwood, Massachusetts, has the hots for a small-time factory executive, Stephen Dallas (John Boles), whose family lost their wealth and prestige. Stella learns that Stephen has broken off his engagement with the upper-crust Helen Morrison (Barbara O’Neil) because he’s uptight about his lowly position and lack of money, figuring the woman he loves deserves better. Meanwhile Stella schemes to meet Stephen and when she does he’s attracted to her. Disregarding class differences, they marry and soon have a daughter Laurel (Anne Shirley).

Stella soon becomes bored with her routine domestic life to her unexciting businessman hubby, who becomes a workaholic in the hope of regaining his wealth and self-respect. The couple grow apart and separate when Stella reverts to her old party-going ways. Stephen allows Stella to raise Laurel in Milltown and he moves to New York.

Years later when Laurel is grown, the now prosperous Stephen meets the upper-class Helen in a New York department store and learns she’s a widow with three sons, and they rekindle their former relationship. When Stephen asks his wife for a divorce to marry Helen, the spiteful Stella refuses. Fearing she will lose her sweet daughter to the more posh and cultured couple, Stella asks Stephen for more money. Later, at a resort with Laurel, Stella shames her daughter by acting crude and dressing in garish home made clothes that Laurel’s rich friends disdainfully comment on. Since Stella loves her daughter and doesn’t want to stand in the way of her happiness, she grants hubby the divorce and allows Stella to be raised by them. After a few years, Stella reads in the newspaper that Laurel is to marry the wealthy society man Richard Grosvenor, III (Tim Holt) in her dad’s New York home, and rather than intrude on the ceremony watches secretly the high society wedding from the outside window in the rain before departing undetected.

The pic had a certain appeal in the 1930s, reflecting on a mother’s sacrifices and the wide divisions between classes. In today’s world, the story has some legs but the way it was presented back then has become outdated. But through the efforts of a good director and a fine actress, they keep the melodrama from sinking completely to the level of a soap opera.

REVIEWED ON 10/12/2014 GRADE: B-

Dennis Schwartz: “Ozus’ World Movie Reviews”

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ

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Remember These Movie Mamas on Mother’s Day

FILM REVIEW

By Newport This Week Staff | on May 07, 2020

By Loren King

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Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange played the real life Edie and Edith Beale in the HBO movie 

Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange played the real-life Edie and Edith Beale in the HBO movie “Grey Gardens,” based on the 1975 documentary.

Where would movies be without mothers? Sacrificial, absent, destructive, saintly and sometimes all these things at once, motherhood is one of cinema’s most enduring and complicated subjects.

From the silent era to last year’s “Little Women,” there’s no shortage of mother-themed movies to watch this Mother’s Day. Here are some suggestions, all available for rental or streaming on Amazon, iTunes and other platforms.

The mother of all sacrificial mother movies, “Stella Dallas,” should have earned an Oscar for Barbara Stanwyck in 1937 for what is arguably her finest performance. Stella Dallas, a millworker from Massachusetts, marries an aristocrat, gives birth to a daughter and, when the marriage ends and the husband takes up with a blue-blood new wife, makes the wrenching decision to deliberately turn her daughter against her so that the child will live with her father and stepmother in social privilege. Also a 1925 silent, it was remade in 1990 as “Stella,” with Bette Midler in full, post-“Beaches” tear-jerking mode.

Allison Janney in 

Allison Janney in “I, Tonya” followed a long line of bad mothers on screen.

Sacrificial motherhood meets film noir to result in one of the most memorable screen mothers in “Mildred Pierce” (1945), with Joan Crawford in her Oscar-winning role as a deserted wife and mother who rises from pie baker to restaurant tycoon. But for all her business success, Mildred fails as a mom. By giving her daughter everything she wants, she creates a spoiled, selfish brat in Veda (Ann Blyth). Still, mother is willing to protect Veda at all costs — even when Veda murders Mildred’s new husband (Zachary Scott).

South Korean director Bong Joon Ho became a household name last year with his smash “Parasite.” His 2010 “Mother” is a dark and engrossing gem about a mother (Kim Hye-ja) who lives quietly with her 28-year-old son (Wan Bin) as she provides herbs and acupuncture to neighbors. When the son is charged with the murder of a young girl, the mother turns into a sleuth and attempts to prove his innocence.

Penelope Cruz played a fictionalized version of director Pedro Almodovar's mother in last year's autobiographical 

Penelope Cruz played a fictionalized version of director Pedro Almodovar’s mother in last year’s autobiographical “Pain and Glory.”

One of the best mother-daughter movies, 1990’s “Postcards from the Edge” is based on the autobiographical novel by Carrie Fisher. It features a deliciously comic Meryl Streep and her prickly relationship with her narcissistic actress-singer mother (Shirley MacLaine), modeled, of course, on Fisher’s own mother, Debbie Reynolds. MacLaine’s nuanced portrayal of an alcoholic spotlight-stealer out-mothered even her beloved, difficult Aurora in “Terms of Endearment.”

Six years later, in a delightful fusion of life and art, Reynolds turned up as the title character in Albert Brooks’s terrific “Mother,” a sharp comedy about a middle-aged man who moves back into his controlling mother’s house.

Loren King is an arts and entertainment writer whose work appears regularly in The Boston Globe and other publications.

Loren King is an arts and entertainment writer whose work appears regularly in The Boston Globe and other publications.

Mother/daughter relationships don’t get more complicated than the real-life one brilliantly captured by the Maysles brothers in their landmark 1975 documentary, “Grey Gardens.” This portrait of Edith Beale and her daughter, Edie, the eccentric relatives of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, is a pas de deux of camaraderie, competition and codependence worthy of Tennessee Williams. It was turned into a solid HBO feature in 2009 by director-writer Michael Sucsy, with memorable performances by Drew Barrymore as Edie and Jessica Lange as her mother.

Universal stories of mothers endure in films made outside of Hollywood, too. In one of the great Italian neo-realist films, Sophia Loren nabbed the best actress Oscar in the 1961 in “Two Women” for her heart-wrenching portrait of a young widow fleeing wartime Rome with her 13-year-old daughter.

The monster mother is also a movie trope. Few were as monstrous as Oscar winner Shelley Winters in “A Patch of Blue” (1965), berating and beating her blind daughter, Selina (Elizabeth Hartman), when she discovers that Selina has befriended a black man (Sidney Poitier).

One of the nastiest bad mothers in recent cinema has to be Allison Janney’s scene-stealing and Oscar-winning turn as the trashy mother of disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding in “I, Tonya” (2017). It doesn’t get much worse than a mother who pays spectators to boo from the bleachers while her insecure daughter is competing on the ice.

Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar is in a class by himself when it comes to making films about mother/child relationships. His “All About My Mother” (1999) features Cecilia Roth as a woman who returns to Barcelona after her son is killed. There, she forges familial relationships with a transvestite (Antonia San Juan), a pregnant nun (Penélope Cruz), and an actress (Marisa Paredes).

In 2006’s “Volver,” Almodóvar revisits the all-female ensemble with Cruz’s Raimunda, in Mildred Pierce fashion, trying to protect her daughter when the daughter’s husband is murdered. A fantasia about second chances and rebirth, “Volver” is the ultimate mother movie in any language, in any era.

Almodóvar showed he’s still in top form with last year’s autobiographical “Pain and Glory,” a tender portrait of a young mother and her son. His frequent star, Penelope Cruz, played Jacinta, a stand-in for Almodóvar’s mother. Cruz brought sensuality and intelligence to Jacinta as she fights for her creative young son to get an education even though it will take him far from their provincial village.

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