Themes: Class Differences, Social Climbing, Mothers and Daughters
Main Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, John Boles, Anne Shirley, Barbara O'Neil, Alan Hale
Release Year: 1937
Country: US
Run Time: 106 minutes
Plot
Produced by Sam Goldwyn, this second film version of Olive Higgins Prouty's Stella Dallas is by far the best. The combined talents of Goldwyn, director King Vidor and star Barbara Stanwyck lift this property far above the level of mere soap opera. Stanwyck is perfectly cast as Stella Martin, the loud, vulgar factory-town girl who snares wealthy husband Stephen Dallas (John Boles). When Stephen is offered a job in New York, Stella stays behind, knowing that she'll never be part of her husband's social circle. She pals around platonically with her old beau, the cheap and tasteless Ed Munn (Alan Hale), a fact that drives yet another wedge between Stella and her husband. The final straw is daughter Laurel's (Anne Shirley) birthday party, which is boycotted by the local bluenoses. Though she would like to remain part of her daughter's life, Stella knows that she and she alone is the reason that Laurel is shunned by the rest of the community. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
The height of multiple-hankie melodrama, King Vidor's Stella Dallas (1937) is also the most affecting screen adaptation of the Olive Higgins Prouty novel. As the ultimate self-abnegating mother, Barbara Stanwyck endows her upwardly aspiring Stella with a potent mixture of crass fashion sense, hedonistic energy, self-aware pathos, and maternal love, while Anne Shirley's Laurel is visibly and poignantly torn between embarrassment and daughterly attachment. Stanwyck's dignity gives Stella's sacrifice to the class system the emotional punch that it requires, as she memorably stands outside a bay window in the rain, watching her refined daughter finally get what Stella always wanted for her. Critically praised for its superior performances, Stella Dallas garnered Stanwyck the first of her four Oscar nominations for Best Actress, as well as a Supporting Actress nomination for Shirley. Previously filmed in 1925, Stella Dallas was remade again in 1990 as the Bette Midler vehicle Stella. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Dramatisation
Harry Wagstaff Gribble
Gertrude Purcell Screenplay
Sarah Y. Mason
Victor Heerman
Joe Bigelow (uncredited) Based on a novel by Olive Higgins Prouty
A young woman from a post World War IMassachusetts factory town succeeds in social advancement, and gains financial security through a romantic relationship and marriage. However, the marriage is not successful, and she ends up dedicating her life to their daughter's advancement and success.
