IMITATION OF LIFE

This is one of my all-time favorite movies. There's a great lesson in it.

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that's a horrible idea. that movie is so dated it's not even funny.

I have the 1934 version on tape (along with the campier remake with Lana Turner). The Colbert version hinges on a pancake recipe from Beavers that ends up being worth millions (Beavers went on to play Aunt Jemima for years after that in ads for the company, by the way) -- when the money starts rolling in, Beavers gives everything to Colbert to keep and Claudette buys a huge mansion for the two of them and the kids to live in -- Beavers of course insists on living in the basement; later when Colbert tries to give Beavers a check for her share of the profits (not sure why Beavers only gets a SHARE when it's her damn recipe), Beavers asks,

"If I take this money, does this mean I can't stay here and take care of you and Miss Jessie?"

Colbert: "Well, it is YOUR money. I thought you might want to get a nice place of your own"

"Oh no! Then I won't take it. I want to stay here and take care of you forever." (or words to that effect)

Imagine the NAACP picket signs in front of a theatre trying to do put that on stage in 2004.....

Both movies are entertaining in their way as period pieces, but couldn't be mounted today as anything but TWEED-like camp extravanganzas.

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Updated On: 9/20/04 at 04:59 PM

The Douglas Sirk classic -- the Lana Turner-Sandra Dee-John Gavin version -- is a cornerstone of my childhood, when it turned up on TV about 3-4 times a year. I have bizarre favorite moments that go unrecognized by many -- I love Sarah Jane's rocking chair on a revolve entrance in the Vegas club (arching her back, throwing back an imaginery cocktail).

And befitting this board: the scene where Lana gets her first job on B'way not by auditioning proficiently ... but by functioning as a dramaturg/script doctor: "..well, you could give these lines to Amy." "Could you play Amy?" Bam! She makes her stellar debut, as Amy ... still very clearly, well, Lana Turner. And watch her curtain call. The audience screams for her, not by first name, but "Miss ---! Miss---" (MASTER, what's Laura's last name!?)

A musical? Alas, to play it devoid of camp is to strip it of its reason for being. No one would be satisfied with a "serious" version. And to overplay the racial story would be lurid and exploitive -- and just corny. Remember, CAROLINE deconstructed the sentimentality of African American domestics and "sensitive" white folk. We dare not go back pre-Kushner, unless it for some very delicious, and ironic, fun. Rupaul and Charles Bush, maybe.

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Updated On: 9/20/04 at 08:41 PM

Hey, what do I know? I thought CARRIE was a good idea. And still do, actually.

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