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| Stella Dallas (1925) | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 9 2014, 06:10 AM (321 Views) | |
| Laughing Gravy | Jan 9 2014, 06:10 AM Post #1 |
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When his old man kills himself over a minor scandal involving hundreds of millions in embezzled company funds, Ronald Colman's girlfriend marries somebody else. Wandering through the slums of town for some reason, Colman deals with the one-two punch by meeting and marrying social-climbing young Belle Bennett (you should've just got a hooker, there, Ronnie) and they have a lovely daughter, Lois Moran (eventually). Ron works very, very hard, giving his wife a chance to climb ever more socially, although she is loud and obnoxious and drinks and is rather stupid. She makes the acquaintance of Jean Hersholt, and HE'S all that and a pint of bathtub gin, so they become besties. When Ronnie's firm transfers him to New York, she won't go, and stays in town to raise both the daughter and a little hell. As the years pass, mama's fun-loving ways make it rough for the daughter to have any nice friends; by the time she's a teenager and hopelessly in love with Doug Fairbanks, Jr., nobody decent will have anything to do with the poor daughter. Mom's attempts to fix things only make her the subject of ridicule ("Her mom's a FREAK!!!!") and so mom makes the ultimate sacrifice for her daughter's happiness. Uh, no, not THAT sacrifice. Good guess, though. Good movie, with a dazzling performance by Miss Bennett as Stella Dallas, who appears to gain 75 lbs. right before our eyes. I'm glad the beautiful Miss Moran's stint as a "10 year old" ended fast, because she looked about 16 and it was absurd (she was, in fact, 16 at the time). A nice print of the film with a full 1 hour and 40 min. running time, but without a soundtrack (I listened to Wes Mongomery and Django Reinhardt) can be found as a bonus on the new Warners DVD of the 1937 remake of this film starring Barbara Stanwyck (both versions were produced by Sam Goldwyn; this one was directed by Henry King). Oddly enough, the silent version is listed only as "Vintage Featurette" on the cover. Hmmmm. |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Jan 9 2014, 04:21 PM Post #2 |
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Mouth Breather
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They're both good movies. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| Frank Hale | Jan 10 2014, 02:14 PM Post #3 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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When I first saw that "featurette" labelling I conjectured that it was in partial atonement for not including a music score. But of course the ad department might just be spectacularly ill-informed. Think I recently saw some Fox internet marketing for the Rathbone Holmes pictures as "film noirs". |
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11:36 AM Jul 11