Imitation of Life (1934) | Claudette Colbert, Warren William

Imitation of Life (1934) | Claudette Colbert, Warren William | the after thought

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Imitation of Life ...

	Imitation of Life (1934) Claudette Colbert, Warren William Universal Studios, 1998 average customer review:based on 29 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Interesting and Enjoyable

I prefer this version to the more famous later version. "Aunt Delilah" didn't bother me. I think the character was realistic about how to live in those times. It's nice to watch this movie because it's preWW2 and there's an authentic Japanese male pancake customer with his own style and speech pattern because that was just a part of the American landscape at that time.

the after thought

This movie was about a few things. It was about the struggles of being milado, while only looking of a white race. AS well as the struggles of a young white mother in her career that ultimately both women, the black and the white help eachother and prosper fully. My review is actually for the people who saw both versions of this movie. The one in the 50's and this 1930's version. I read the reviews on both versions, and usually I enjoy the older movies more, or the first ones made, but I actually felt that the version made in the 1950's was more dramatic and I felt the emotion that I was supposed to feel on a deeper level. The actors and actreses were a better fit for the part and the story line was more in depth. I would recommend the 1950's version over the original any day.

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Very long movie

At 1 hour, 51 minutes, this movie is in no hurry to get to the end. I guess Depression-era audiences were happy to sit in a cool theater that long. Scenes are long, slow, and drawn out, like in real life. Claudette Colbert is is no hurry to move along to the next scene. And why should she when she doesn't age a bit in the 15 years this movie spans? And doesn't Warren William look like John Barrymore!! Same profile. If you are a fan of the Lana Turner version, you really ought to see this.

WOW, The Miseducation of the United States Population

So, I'm reading these reviews, and it seems that a lot of people like to talk about things that they DO NOT know about. First, I would like to say that this is a good movie. It would never be one of my favorites, but it definitely was well made. So now that that's out of the way....I would never say that the character of Delilah is "understandable for those times" as if her portrayal was realistic. However, her portrayal as a "mammy" is understandable because most portrayals of African Americans in early film had to do with the five basic character types(mammy, tom, coon, buck, and mulatto). Realistically, if you were living through the Great Depression would you give complete ownership of a recipe to someone else who will make millions off of it? I just think it's funny that people find Delilah to be a believeable character.

Next up, Peola. The tragic mulatto. Judging from earlier reviews, I am getting the idea that most people do not know that this is also a stereotypical character as much as the mammy character is. Someone mentioned something about Civil Rights being 30 years away. That might be true, but black activism did not just spring up out of nowhere. The NAACP was founded in 1909, in New York, which happens to be where the movie takes place. If she was upset about the lives of black people in the United States, why would she direct that anger towards her blackness? Especially when she lived in an area where she could have possibly been exposed to black activism.

So yes, good movie even though I found it to be frustrating at times, but please learn the facts.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

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