Clyde’s Movie Palace Takes a Look Back at Imitation of Life (1959). KLEENEX AVAILABLE FOR FREE IN THE LOBBY.

It’s hard to believe that Director Douglas Sirk’s remake of Imitation of Life (first filmed in 1934 and based on the 1933 Fannie Hurst novel) was once thought of as nothing more than a high-class soap opera. I thought of it that way once, but that opinion went out the door quite a while back. The film is now considered a masterpiece by many, and I have to concur with that opinion.

Imitation of Life, along with the 1934 version, have both been inducted into the Library of Congress National Film Registry as being historically or aesthetically significant and recommended for preservation by those holding the best elements for that film. In this case, that would be Universal, who released both films as a two-movie set on Bluray. In addition, Criterion has released the 1934 version as well. Whether we’ll ever see a 4k release is debatable, but this film would surely benefit from it. Are you there, Kino Lorber?

Our movie begins in 1947 at a crowded Coney Island beach in New York City where a distraught mother, Lora Meredith (Lana Turner), searches frantically for her not so lost daughter Suzie (played at age 6 by Terry Burnham). Here, she bumps into her future love interest, freelance photographer Steve Archer (John Gavin), who directs her to a police officer for help.

Suzie has found herself a playmate, Sarah Jane (played at age 8 by Karin Dicker). They are being watched over and fed hot dogs by Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore), a black woman. When Lora arrives, the two children run off to play together while Lora and Annie chat and get to know each other.

Lora: Sarah Jane’s a lovely child. How long have you taken care of her?
Annie: All her life.
Lora: I wish I had someone to look after Suzie.
Annie: A maid to live in? Someone to take care of your little girl. A strong healthy settled-down woman who eats like a bird and doesn’t care if she gets no time off and will work really cheap.
Lora: Well, yes if one exists. Oh, someday!
Annie: How about today? I’m available.
Lora: You?
Annie: Me. Annie Johnson
Lora: You mean you’d consider leaving that lovely little girl?
Annie: Oh, I wouldn’t be leaving her. My baby goes where I go.
Lora: (Incredulously) Sarah Jane, is your child?
Annie: Yes, ma’am, it surprises most people. Sarah Jane favors her daddy. He was practically white. Left before she was born. Seems to me, Miss Meredith, I’m just right for you. You wouldn’t have to pay no wages. Just let me come and do for you!
Lora: I couldn’t do that. I’d have to pay you but can’t now.     

 

And if you thought that was that, you know very little about Basic Movie Plots 101.

When Sarah Jane starts crying that she and her mother don’t have a home, Lora relents and says, “Annie Johnson and Sarah Jane, Come on down!”      

As for Photographer Steve, romance will soon follow once he acquires Lora and Suzie’s home address.

Lora reminds Annie that their presence in her apartment is a one-night-only engagement meaning the arrangement will continue for quite a while.

Suzie offers Sarah Jane a black doll to play with that she happens to have in her collection, but she’ll have none of that shit. She wants the white doll that is Suzie’s favorite; thus, the movie wastes no time telling us that Sarah isn’t tuned into this whole business of being black. Sarah Jane, who was crying over not having any place to live just a short while ago, is also not too keen on living in a back room off the kitchen. At the ripe old age of eight, she’s tired of being relegated to back rooms and has seen enough of them.

It doesn’t take long for Lora to realize that a live-in maid who works practically for nothing but a place to sleep and a meal now and then is damn convenient. And here you thought slavery had ended in the 1800’s. Not that Annie or Lora would ever classify their relationship as such. Eventually, it works out for both parties financially, but not necessarily as an improvement to their mother/daughter relationships.

Lora and Steve hook up romantically when he delivers the pictures of Suzie and Sarah Jane that he took at the beach. While Steve and Lora are at lunch, she learns that agent Alan Loomis (Robert Alda) is casting a new play and manages to finagle her way into an interview. It goes well at first, but Loomis sees through Lora’s act but still wants her as a client, which requires her to do certain immoral things. Welcome to Hollywood Whoredom, Lora Meredith. Come on down!

But Lora, being of sound mind and moral principles, turns Loomis down without even thinking twice about it, sheds his mink coat, and heads out the door.

All this while Annie has been addressing Lora’s envelopes for her, making a deal with the landlord on the rent, which includes getting ten dollars off for cleaning the stairwell and laundering a persnickety man’s clothes for him while the two kids are in school. Annie runs this show, and Lora is the one along for the ride while she weeps over Loomis, making her feel cheap. Yet, inexplicably, or maybe out of necessity, Loomis remains Lora’s agent throughout her up-and-coming career. It’s a clue as to what many actresses were and, in some cases, still are subjected to in order to establish a film or Broadway career.

Steve, just like every insecure Republican Male in 2023, wants Lora to forget about being a Broadway actress to become his housewife, clean, cook, do the dishes, draw the bath, have babies, bring him a beer, and draw his bath. Bye-bye, Steve.

Eventually, through a bit of luck, Lora gets a supporting role in a play by writer David Edwards (Dan O’Herlihy). After rave reviews, Lora becomes his permanent comedy star, like the Lucille Ball of Broadway. It is strongly suggested that she also becomes Edward’s lover during this time.

Eleven years and eleven plays later, things have changed quite a bit for Lora, Annie, and Suzie (now sixteen and played by Sandra Dee). But not necessarily for Sarah Jane (now eighteen and played by Susan Kohner). It’s a best-of-times, worst-of-times scenario.

Because of her Broadway success, Lora has all the material things one could ask for and bestow upon her daughter simultaneously. She doesn’t have a good relationship with Suzie, who spends much of her time away at boarding school, only seeing her mother on rare occasions when she can get away from her plays. Sarah Jane, who is more of an adult now, is still struggling to become white, having secretly acquired a white boyfriend. It’s a move that leads to tragic consequences.      
     
Unlike Suzie, who would like more time with Lora, Sarah Jane would like nothing more than to have Annie stay as far away from her and as inconspicuous as possible.

And remember Steve, the photographer? Having mellowed out a bit about the whole male chauvinist housekeeping wife bit, he re-enters just in time to become a companion looking after Suzie while Lora is overseas making a film after she had promised her daughter she was taking time off to spend more time with her. Suzie doesn’t perceive Steve as her designated companion and instead falls in love with him.

I want to tell you all this works out, but I can’t. This movie isn’t some ordinary run-of-the-mill weeper and could just as easily have been titled Tragedy of Life.

While watching Imitation of Life a couple of weeks ago with my wife in our home theater, she turned to me at one crucial point involving Sarah Jane. She said, “Frankly, I don’t blame her. Look at how black people have been treated. If I could escape that, I would do it.”

Despite the insistence of Lora that Annie is her friend and confidante and that she seems content to accept it as just that, she remains Lora’s glorified maid. Without Annie, one could even surmise that Lora may not have had the opportunities her success brings her. Sara Jane, forgetting for the moment that the only reason she has the things she does is because of Lora’s success when asked to serve Lora’s dinner guests, Sara Jane does so as if she’s Prissy in Gone With the Wind. But this “act” comes when Lora and Annie want to fix her up with nice black boys, sons of chauffeurs, butlers, gardeners, and maids.

Sarah Jane’s struggle to be identified as white is painful to sit through, not because she wants to, but to her, it’s a way of survival, to escape the reality of racism and segregation. To no longer be looked at as inferior. We feel her pain and struggles in scenes where Sarah Jane’s race is discovered. One has to wonder, however, if the audiences of the 50’s understood that. Many of them, including some critics, considered the film nothing more than a soap-operish tear-jerker. But now, over 60 years later, Imitation of Life is regarded as a masterpiece of race commentary. In 2015, BBC Online named the film the 37th greatest American movie ever made, based on a survey of film critics.

The acting, with the exception of John Gavin, is impeccable. Gavin is as wooden as a ventriloquist’s dummy but he’s not in the movie enough for you to care. Both Kohner and Moore received Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress. Neither won, but either/or deserved to. Kohner did win a Golden Globe in that category, however. But let’s not trivialize Lana Turner’s contributions either. She was never better at portraying the glamour queen, helped by Sirk and Producer Ross Hunter giving her lavish clothes befitting of Broadway royalty.

Have things changed in all these years? Some. But the underlying systemic racism is still here.

We have one political party, the GOP, running on the idea of how white you can be. During the Obama Presidency, the same political party would claim he was not really black at all while at the same time insisting he wasn’t even born in the United States.

During the Obama years, I had a discusion with one family member regarding the Obama presidency, pointing out many facts she didn’t care to be aware of. At the end of the conversation, she responded, “I don’t care. I just hate Obama.” It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why or why this country would continue to give power to White Supremacists like Trump and DeSantis while making it a crime to teach about racism in schools and, as in the case of DeSantis and friends, proclaiming that slavery was one big happy beneficially good time for black people.

By the film’s end, Lora’s struggles and problems with Suzie seem almost trivial. Director Douglas Sirk masterfully moves that story to the background to focus on Annie and Sarah Jane. When the film was finished, Sirk returned to his native Germany, never to direct another feature film, having had his fill of the Hollywood machinery:

I never regarded my pictures as very much to be proud of, except in this, the craft, the style. And in movies you must be a gambler. To produce films is to gamble. A director in Hollywood in my time couldn’t do what he wanted to do.

This is truly a great film. I would, as others have, put it on the list of films you must see before you die, and without hesitation, it deserves an A+ rating. Even to this day, I find the ending of this movie a struggle, as just about every man or woman does. Just don’t forget the Kleenex.

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Mouse Kicks the Ass of Florida’s Ron DeSphincter

I hate it when I have to choose a side between a corporation like Disney, whom I have some problems with, and a corrupt Fascist Dictator Governor such as Ron Adolf DeSphincter (aka Ron DeSantis as right-wing extremist nitwits and bigots refer to him).

The fascist governor dictator will lose every single time. We fought a war to help rid the world of one Nazi, and all these years later, we’re supposed to put up with another one? What the hell is wrong with you people, especially the ones in Florida who think some insane politician should dictate to us how we should live, who we should be, what we should believe, and if we disagree with him, such as Disney did, be subjected to reprisals and absurd revenge for having a mind of our own.

All this Disney/DeSphincter battle started because Adolf Ron got butthurt when Disney dared to call him out on his discriminatory, bigoted, hateful “Don’t Say Gay Law,” his book banning, and his adoption of White Supremacy to the cheers of the Florida crowd, whitewashed since birth.

And now, as word comes that Disney’s popularity stays steady, DeSphincter’s popularity continues to implode like a mini-sub in the Atlantic. Things like this are bound to happen when your dictatorial horse shit costs jobs, causes farming corporations to have to beg migrants to stay and work, causes truckers to boycott your state, and you spend millions on a war against Disney Inc. that you lost as soon as you decided to scratch your itchy snowflake rash in a battle of retribution.

Dare to go up against DeSphincter, and you’ll automatically be labeled a groomer or pedophile as if pasting that label on anybody, and everybody will help you win more converts.

From Florida Politics:

Almost (but not quite) the biggest winner: Disney. New polling shows Disney’s favorability ratings have remained steady since last year’s controversy over Florida’s parental rights bill, while the Governor’s rating has dropped significantly.

The data shows Disney at a +31 favorability rating, almost identical to the +32 for the company in May 2022. DeSantis, meanwhile, sat at -4 in May 2022, but has dropped to a -16 rating in the latest wave of surveys from June 2-5.

Some may quibble about citing data from a left-leaning outlet, and that does warrant a skeptical look. But what’s important are not the specific favorability ratings, but rather the trend. DeSantis is down 12 points from last May, and down 18 points from November 2022, when he was polling competitively with former President Trump in the 2024 GOP Primary. Disney, meanwhile, appears to have mostly weathered the storm in the public’s eye.

The company and the Governor have battled ever since Disney’s former CEO Bob Chapek spoke out against the legislation limiting discussion of LGBTQ issues in Florida’s classrooms. That, of course, triggered a back-and-forth which is still ongoing, both legislatively and in the courts.

But the latest data shows Disney appears to have the upper hand in the court of public opinion.

As if that wasn’t enough, also this from the same page.

Never Back Down, a super PAC raising hundreds of millions of dollars to support his presidential bid, closed the week by accusing this outlet of being “bought and paid for by groomers.”

There’s pretty much no context that could make that remark sound any less ridiculous. But it came in response to FlaPol’s publisher Peter Schorsch jabbing the Governor while posting a picture of his Disney Cruise makes it way more ridiculous.

“Just want to share the door decor from our (Disney cruise) we are embarking on this weekend. It celebrates the 25th anniversary of the cruise line. We booked this cruise to celebrate that anniversary AND to spite (DeSantis’) lunacy with his war on (Disney),” Schorsch wrote.

It’s not the first time the Governor has been criticized for dragging on this battle for Disney for so long (with mediocre results, per those above favorability numbers). It probably won’t be the last. But the fundraising behemoth got so triggered by this its spokes trolls couldn’t help but respond.

“We get it; you’re bought and paid for by the groomers and Trump,” the organization’s official account wrote.

As Maggie Haberman of The New York Times put it, “A presidential super PAC accusing someone of being backed by ‘groomers’ for taking a Disney cruise is where things are.”

If DeSantis’ boosters can’t handle a light jab about a topic that has generated months of criticism (and yes, support from some as well), so much so that they start arguing pedophiles and their political opponent are shadow-boosting a political site, boy are they going to have trouble handling Trump’s vile volleys he’ll be lobbing their way this cycle.

Plus, “bought and paid for by the groomers and Trump”? Come on, we all know Trump never pays for anything.

As Linda Ellerbee might have concluded, “So it goes.”

 

 

I HOPED TO BE DONE WITH THIS POLITICAL CRAP. BUT I GUESS YOU NEVER ARE.

Having deleted my Facebook Personal Page permanently, I keep my Clyde’s Alley Public Facebook Page associated with this blog.  Granted, I’ve not exactly set the blogging world on fire with posts recently, but I always hope that more blogging with more in-depth content is just around the corner.  Sure.  But you can catch up on a lot of rants on that linked Facebook page if you’re so inclined, follow it or even ignore it.  Whatever floats your boat.  We are in Uhmer’ca, and you’re still free to do what you want to do.

You can even choose to be a whiny, racist, White Supremacist, a total blooming idiot like my ex-wife and one of my siblings.  They are perfect examples of why I don’t need a personal Facebook page and tossed it aside like so much unneeded garbage.  I feel no inclination to indulge my eldest kid’s mother because she gave birth to our son.  I also no longer feel compelled to overlook the racism and White Supremacy that has infected and inflicted permanent damage to my youngest sister’s brain. It’s a sad thing to see.

Maybe she was always that way, and I  just overlooked it.  She did move to South Carolina some time ago.  It could be that she’s spent so much time with her  Evangelical Cousins.  And there’s her even more idiotic physically oversized but very pea-brained son-in-law to spew his vomit worthy nonsense. 

I had the displeasure to meet Baby Huey at my brother’s funeral a couple of years ago.  One thing I do know is that although they’ve found a vaccination for Covid-19, they can’t seem to find a cure for the brain damage of those who wish to follow along with the Republican Creed of Racism and Stupidity like a large corral of goose-stepping lemmings.

I commenced this particular rant because, having deleted my personal Facebook page, the ex-wife found her way to the above-linked Clyde's Alley page.  She promptly let loose with one of her stupid low brow remarks spawned from the brow of someone whose genes and mindset advertise that they have never given any thought to anything in their life beyond their last joint or the last Budweiser they guzzled into oblivion. 

I was married to the woman for four years and should have known better.  But I was young and incredibly foolish.  Yeah, you can say I was stupid if you want to.  But there was no Facebook or Twitter at that time in which these racist clowns could openly expose themselves.

How she found her way to that page, I don’t know.  I had blocked her from the personal page I deleted and never had any idea that Ms. Ex would pop up again.  Yet there she was.  Heaven helps us if she finds her way to this blog.

Before blocking her from the Clyde’s Stuff Facebook page, I paid a visit to her rantings.  When I initially booted her, I did it for two reasons: Her Stupidity and her nasty personal comments she kept directing at me.  It was like she’s still bitter after 35 years even though I’ve had little or no contact with her since the twelfth day of never.  All this even though she is deeply involved in a lesbian relationship and has been for quite some time.  I sure don’t begrudge her that.

All of that makes her loving relationship with the Republican Party, the party that hates all things gay, bi, or trans, to be vomit-inducing.  I did not realize how deep her loyalty was, not even when I initially blocked her because I didn’t visit her page and didn’t care.  But deep inside, I knew, like most people back in the dumbed-down brainless toilet tank of Scioto County in Ohio, she never had a chance of having a rational thought in her head. 

One of the gems she posted:

What’s most astonishing about this is that she’s a woman who has gained everything she has thanks to Government Handouts. Even when I was paying child support, she never worked and lived in government-subsidized housing. She didn’t hold a job until our son turned 18, and she could no longer get ADC and Food Stamps on his behalf. The government aid she loathes helped her get a cushiony high-paying job, which she held until supposedly hurting her back and had to go on disability, another one of those handouts she loathes so much when they’re for anyone besides herself. Republicans want you to get jobs? No, Republicans want you to remain in poverty, stupid, and racist and to keep voting for them on that basis.

And why in the hell didn’t you get up off your dead ass and work when our kid was growing up? I was working, I wasn’t on a government ride, but the funny thing is I don’t ridicule those who need a helping hand. Not until now because I have nothing but disdain for hypocrites such as yourself who think they’re the only ones deserving.  Everybody else is just some Democrat Hippie looking for handouts.

Newsflash: Most of those on welfare and government subsidies are Republicans who live in the Red States just like you do and then point the finger at everybody else. And you know who pays for your free ride? Those of us in blue states like California, New York, and Massachusetts, among others. Your willful lazy ignorance sickens me.

And by this time, I’m sure you’re gladly picking up your Social Security check. Chances are, before that, you were also on Social Security Disability. But that’s your SSD and not some lazy ass Democratic Party Member. Am I right?

You know, the thing your party of Republican White Supremacy has been trying to get rid of since the beginning of its existence. But as long as you can whine and complain and blame it on minorities, who pay ten times or even more in taxes than you ever have in your life, it’s all good right?

Let’s move on.

And did my Repugnican ex-wife bother to find out who made this price gouging and extortion of Americans possible? Of course not. Why? I don’t think she has ever read a real book or magazine article and can only consider those thoughts implanted in her brain by Fox News or Newsmax.

I have my newsflash for you. The goddamn Republican party you worship as if it was run by God made this extortion possible by removing regulations and increasing corporate handouts. The same Republican party who’d be dancing in the aisles with glee if they were able to remove the protection given to you by Democrats where insurance companies could no longer deny you because of a pre-existing condition. What in the holy hell do you think they’ve (Republicans) have been trying to do for the past four years?

What made this quick visit to my ex’s page even more painful was running across this comment by my sister. Dear old Sis decided to make her place of residence in South Carolina a few years back.  Upon arriving, she promptly stuck her head up the ass of her two idiot Evangelical Cousins and her blubbering son-in-law.  Sis then proceeded to get in line to slobber her gratitude for the racism and White Supremacy of Donald Trump.

There was more, but let’s finish off this bit of nonsense with this post of crapola.  It was when I found out exactly how racist, bigoted, and stupefied my sister had become when she responded to the equal stupidity of my ex.

There is just way too much stupidity in these comments for me to absorb. If these two Neanderthals had their way, we’d all still be riding around in a horse and buggy. Or maybe even saddling up the old mare. They enjoy lining the pockets of super-rich oil companies and utilities with cold hard cash and have no intention of looking into the future any further than the need to invest in a new toilet someday. With this kind of thinking, it wouldn’t surprise me if both of them still make use of an outhouse in the backyard.

It sounds to me that these two are belittling those who work in the Solar Panel industry and those who work on wind turbines as a job beneath someone who can put some metal and steel together to pump oil that will mostly benefit Big Oil. But you know, many people are making real money and working hard in real jobs in those industries you have not one iota of understanding about because you’d have to turn off Tucker Carlson and read a book of intelligence and enlightenment.

And Sis, did you stop for one-half second to realize that the particular pipeline you are talking about would do little in creating jobs once finished? Of course not. And for all their ranting and raving about those damn foreigners, neither one bothered to find out that this particular pipeline would be owned and operated by Canada.

The oil industry has lobbied hard to get KXL built using false claims, political arm-twisting, and big bucks. When TC Energy said the pipeline would create nearly 119,000 jobs, a State Department report instead concluded the project would require fewer than 2,000 two-year construction jobs and that the number of jobs would hover around 35 after construction.

As for the environmental damage, do you think these two Trumpanzees would give a crap about what kind of a world they’ll leave their kids and grandkids? Of course not.

Thanks to the Democrats in Congress, the $1400 stimulus check will soon arrive in their bank accounts. But they’ll still bow down and sing almighty praise to the Republicans who did everything they could to stop it because of Racism and White Supremacist Trump. Did you think they would turn their nose up at that handout with disdain?

Typically, I would not give two cents of thought to my ex-wife, and had she not decided to invade my Clyde’s Alley page, I wouldn’t be on this rant now. I hope it’s the absolute last time I have to deal with her.

If she stumbles her way here to comment, she’ll find that quite frustrating. Nobody but nobody gets a comment through without my approval. As for my youngest sister, unless she suddenly comes to her senses and sees the light, the same thing goes for her. I don’t expect that to happen, though. I’ll be off the planet before it does.

And finally, this was on her page.  And here’s my answer to it.  Yes, I do blame you.  I blame you for supporting and voting for one of the most useless, Racist, White Supremacist, misogynist, raping, thieving cowards to reside in this country, let alone soiling the presidency.  It’ll take years to undo the damage done by him, you, and the Repugnicans who have sought to destroy this democracy.  Fuck all of you. You all make this world lousy.