Stella Dallas (1937)
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Stella Dallas Movie Review
Stella Dallas is a 1937 drama film directed by King Vidor and starring Barbara Stanwyck. It’s such a moving picture.
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“I’ve always been known to have a stack of style!“
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When Stella Martin separates from her high society husband, Stephen Dallas, she makes her daughter, Laurel the focus and purpose of her life and eventually makes the ultimate sacrifice for her. It’s a classic melodrama from the thirties with heightened, but earned emotion actually as it never goes overboard and it’s rather rewarding in that moving third act.
This is one of those films that becomes better and better as it moves along. The first act is not as great, though it sets up the story very well. But the second act is very dramatic and powerful whereas obviously the third act is very poignant and strikingly memorable.
Barbara Stanwyck plays a woman who has no style whatsoever, and from there you get the most humor out of this picture. She marries a rich man, but when they divorce, her daughter goes to live with him. She has developed a strong maternal bond, and that mother-daughter relationship drives the movie as its biggest heart and soul.
Stanwyck is absolutely wonderful. Her performance is so believable and ultimately all the greater because it was so different from her usual more cool roles. A strong case could be made that she was the one most deserving of an Oscar that year as this is by far one of her career-greatest performances.
Others are also quite good, though less memorable than her obviously. Anne Shirley was nominated for her supporting role, and deservedly so as her performance is so good, and the scenes between the two are frequently the film’s best parts. It’s a shame that the film was otherwise snubbed by the Academy when it was clearly one of the year’s best productions.
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Stella Dallas is very well directed by reliably great King Vidor, it’s also superbly shot and mostly well-paced, though it has its less interesting plot points. But the film is ultimately quite engaging because it builds to a very satisfactory finale. It has a huge heart without ever being manipulative in emotion, and that balance is not easy to pull off at all.
Stella Dallas is an incredibly emotional melodrama without ever being too manipulative or sappy. That balance was achieved flawlessly thanks to a strong build-up, great dialogue and a fantastic central performance from Barbara Stanwyck in such a great role. The mother-daughter relationship is the heart of this very moving picture.
