This classic drama (or “woman’s picture”, as they called ’em in the 1930s) has been jerking tears out of people for over eighty years now. I would love to make fun of them. I would love to make fun of this movie. As I write this, it’s August in Texas, I’m sick of summer, I’m hating life and it would feel good to trash something.
Only problem: Stella Dallas made me cry, too. I let go completely over this movie. I could have watered a few succulents.
At first, this doesn’t feel like a film that’s going to turn you into Niagara Falls by the end. It starts out like one of those pre-Code movies about a woman of humble stock who schemes her way into marriage with an upwardly mobile guy and then sees it all blow up in her face somehow. Lead actress Barbara Stanwyck was even IN one of those movies, the great Baby Face, a mean little film from 1933 in which she plays a frosty gold-digger.
In that film though, Stanwyck’s character was a stick figure compared to the fully fleshed, imperfect, tragic whale of a part that she plays here as Stella, a poor girl who marries into high society and then has no idea about how to behave there. For other movies, that scenario is fertile ground for comedy, but in this film it’s all about disappointment and the pain of an incompatible marriage.
To the film’s credit, it never paints easy heroes and villains. For part of it, Stella is a giant idiot who, after she has a daughter, is unready for the responsibility. The very day they bring the baby home Stanwyck wants to go out dancing and drinking, against the advice of everyone. Meanwhile, her husband is more refined, prim and proper, but not a jerk about it. He wants his marriage with Stella to work. He puts more effort into it than she does. When he gets a good job in another city and Stella refuses to move, he decides to be a long-distance husband and he leaves the child with Stella without a fight. Raising the girl, Stella grows. She’ll never be one who fits in among the well-to-do, but Stella becomes an adult.
This is not a film about a free spirit who rightfully riles up the tightasses. Its message isn’t that simple.
It’s about more than that. It’s about people. This film allows them to be complex. Sometimes there’s no bad guy, just a bad situation.
In the end, Stella’s flaws stop being important. All that matters is a mother’s love. On that count, Stella has become as evolved as anyone. She’s ready to make painful decisions. She’s ready to make major sacrifices for her daughter’s future. She’s ready to do it without any credit and she’s ready to set the stage for one of the most heart-wrenching conclusions to a film ever.
This is all Barbara Stanwyck’s show (and it earned her a deserved Oscar nomination). She had one of the cooler careers of old Hollywood. Stanwyck didn’t play very many passive wives or girlfriends. Her career is full of heavyweight parts and decisive characters. She got her start in some notably edgy early 1930s films (such as the great Night Nurse) and eventually morphed into one of the queens of film noir and even had spell in the 50s in which she was a western star who wore a gun belt and hat as well as any man (Cattle Queen of Montana, Forty Guns). Along the way, she worked with the likes of Frank Capra, William Wellman, Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang, and Sam Fuller in their most vital years.
Your exploration of the most interesting corners of Hollywood history isn’t complete without several Barbara Stanywck movies and your exploration of Barbara Stanwyck movies isn’t complete without this, her signature role.