A Movie You Might Have Missed #91 — Imitation of Life (1934)

A struggling widow and her daughter take in a black housekeeper and her fair-skinned daughter. The two women start a successful business but face familial, identity, and racial issues along the way.

This was the final movie we watched  from the 1935 Oscars as we work our way through Oscar winners and selected nominees. We were all surprised at how much we liked this tale of two mothers — one black, one white — who become good friends as they struggle together against the world in raising their daughters and earning a living. It tackled issues in a manner really surprising when you consider everyday life for black Americans in 1934.

I really love the 1935 winner - It Happened One Night - but we think Imitation of Life was robbed by not winning. I was especially interested to see Claudette Colbert in her third movie nominated for an Oscar that year. She was red hot that year and her performance here was good.

However, it was Louise Beavers who really stood out. We'd seen her previously in She Done Him Wrong, the Mae West film that was nominated for the 1934 Oscars. Beavers played a stereotyped, giggling, joking maid in that one. However, here she was allowed a role that was very unusual for any black actor of the time. Most definitely she was robbed by having no Oscar nomination for her performance, most probably because she was black as newspapers at the time noted.

I especially liked the portrayal of the friendship between the two women after reading that the book from which the story was adapted was inspired by a road trip to Canada the author took with her friend, the African-American short-story writer and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston.

This is one worth watching for a lot of reasons.