Interestingly up to now all the African American characters in the films I have watched have been portrayed as maids to the lead protagonists, usually the women, and barely get any lines. Films like You Can't Take it With You and Jezebel gave these characters a few lines and almost a mini sub-plot but they weren't viewed as the leads. So I was surprised to see a film which featured a dominant African American character, and a female one at that, in a film that dealt with the issues of both race and gender.
The film was Imitation of Life and was nominated for Best Picture in 1935, the winner that year was It Happened One Night however Claudette Colbert starred in both films and although she won Best Actress for the former I found her much more impressive in the latter. Colbert plays Bea a widow with a daughter who takes in African American housekeeper Delilah and her mixed race daughter, Delilah agrees to work for Bea in exchange for somewhere to live but Bea struggles to earn a living selling pancake syrup. Thanks to Delilah's pancakes however, Bea is able to start a successful pancake restaurant and later becomes a powerful businesswoman by selling pancake flour. As the year's go on both women's daughters start to grow up Delilah's daughter Peola starts to be embarrassed by her African American heritage and eventually rejects her mother as she wants everyone to believe that she is white. Meanwhile Bea becomes involved with a man named Steven but when her daughter Jessie returns home from college she falls in love with Steven as well. The end of the film sees Delilah dying but having an extravagant funeral paid for with the money that she put aside from the business, meanwhile Bea and Steven go their separate ways after she realises that it will complicate her relationship with her daughter.
I really enjoyed Imitation of Life and thought it was one of the first pictures which had a strong female lead and a mostly female cast. Although this is true of films like Norma Shearer's The Divorcee, those films still saw the female characters heavily reliant on men, in Imitation of Life the female characters become successful on their own and the male characters are perceived as foils to Bea as she is able to trick a lot of men into giving them her help free of charge in the opening scenes of the film. The film also deals with the tricky topic of race in the plot involving Delilah and Peola, Delilah is portrayed as a devoted mother who starts the film looking for work so she can house her daughter but Peola starts to become obsessed with blending in and thinks that her African American heritage will stop her from doing this. The final scenes in which Peola believes that she has killed her mother are some of the films most emotional. Despite this being a well acted piece none of the actors received nominations however I believe if the Best Supporting Actress category had been around then Louise Beavers may have been nominated for her portrayal of Delilah. Despite the film having an African-American star, Beavers didn't feature on any of the posters instead they all feature Colbert and male co-star Warren William so it seems although the film was fairly open-minded it was still promoted as a traditional romantic drama, which seems like a real shame.
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