On The 80th
Anniversary-The Travails Of Single Motherhood-Barbara Stanwyck’s “Stella
Dallas” (1937)-A Film Review
DVD Review
By Leslie Dumont
(This is another film
that was in the pipeline in 2017 but got pushed back due to the internal in-fighting
on this site so 80th anniversary is appropriate. Greg Green)
Stella Dallas, starring
Barbara Stanwyck, John Boles, Anne Shirley, directed by the legendary King
Vidor, 1937
In a recent film review
of Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Roger’s Stage
Door I mentioned, apparently out of turn, that I was grateful to the new
site manager Greg Green for taking me on as a regular writer in this space.
That part was okay according to him. The part that was not okay was when I
mentioned that I had known the previous site manager Allan Jackson for many years
beginning with an initial connection with my then companion Josh Breslin in the
1980s who had met Allan out in San Francisco during the Summer of Love, 1967. Allan
had refused to give me a regular by-line then at the hard copy version of this
site, although he hired me as a stringer, freelance-writer for a while until I got
a regular by-line at The Eye. Allan’s
reason back then was that hiring me would be an act of nepotism, would look like
he was stockpiling the place with his friends their friends and cronies.
Strange because in the end he would as he got older and more nostalgic surround
himself with a mother lode of just such people. Gave them titles and all
everything that they abhorred back in their mainly 1960s youth.
Thinking about the matter
recently I am more inclined to go with my feelings at the time of rejection
that he really did not like women
working alongside him in
his various publishing efforts. A look at the archives has pretty much confirmed
that. The surprising part is that in person, and the politics he and the blog
stood for, stand for, he, if not actually a feminist, none of the guys at this
site, including Josh, could be classified that way then he was far forward on
what he called “the women question” than most of the men that I worked in the industry
with later. And I have made that statement on a number of occasions including
that previously mentioned review. That is what got me in hot water with Greg.
He told me that he was trying to get rid of Allan’s still very strong “presence”
here despite his physical distance in, I think, Utah. I am not sure what to
make of the statement but others have told me they have received the same “warning.”
In short, except as a passing reference to some negative aspect of Allan’s regime,
don’t write about him during the course of a review. Since this film review was
already in the pipeline Greg has told me he will not “red-pencil” any such
references here.
That brings us to the film
under review Barbara Stanwyck’s Stella
Dallas which deals with some women’s issues that could not get addressed in
Stage Door although that was a very
strong women’s film as well. (I hope that I am wrong, and I probably am, but I would
be very unhappy if I was the token women here and hence will be given all the
so-called “chick-flicks,” all the women-oriented films since that would both be
a serious step back from what this site is supposed to stand for and drive me
crazy as well since my attitude toward most women’s films, especially of late
is that they should never have been produced for lots of reasons which I will
get into sometime when I get another such assignment).
It is only recently,
maybe the last few years, the combination of sex and class have begun to get a
serious work-out in the body politic and its reflection in film. So it is
rather surprising to see such issues, intentionally or not and maybe not is closer
to the grain, in a 1930s Hollywood film, a melodrama, a tear-jerker to boot.
Stella Dallas (nee Martin) is from minute one of the film all about getting out
from under her banal mill-town working class upbringing. She wants the American
rags to riches dream but via her sexual charms and feminine wiles to grab an
eligible rich man and not through
her own education and
acumen. Well once she put her claws out she hooks an up and coming guy, not
rich but with prospects, Steve Dallas, played by 1930s rich and handsome leading
man character John Boles, who on the rebound marries her quickly, too quickly
for either party in the end.
The result of this union
is a young daughter, Laurel, played by Anne Shirley as she ages, as she gets to
be a good-looking young woman. But well before that the well-mannered Dallas-rough
and tumble Martin class differences portent a marriage not made in heaven. Before
long the paths separated with Stella in charge of the daughter on a set allowance
from Stephen who was off to New York to make a ton of money. That situation goes
on for years with Laurel periodically off with father and very different kind of
lifestyle among the upper crust whom her father is associating with as he again
rises in society.
Such a situation could
not go on forever especially as Laurel is attracted to that high society life,
although finally made aware that her ill at ease mother can’t keep up with that
crowd, no way. In the best interest of the child though Stella finally agrees
to divorce Stephen, an extremely hard thing to have to do in that time, and let
Laurel go and soak up the lifestyle of the rich and famous. Stella’s sacrifice,
although it turned out she couldn’t quite make that class jump herself, paid
off when Laurel married some scion of the Mayfair swells as Josh always liked
to call them. Sex, class, single motherhood, sacrifice a better than average melodrama
from that period. Except Josh will also squash things a bit when he reads this
review and start yelling about Ms. Stanwyck’s role as the femme fatale in the
film adaptation of James M. Cain’s Double
Indemnity la and the hell with the frumpy housewife she plays in this film.
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