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Imitation of Life (Two Movie Collection) 1934/1959


Directed by John M. Stahl, Douglas Sirk
Starring Claudette Colbert, Warren William, Rochelle Hudson, Ned Sparks, Louise Beavers
Universal Studios

List Price: $19.98
5 New starting at: $16.69
9 Used starting at: $15.50
Sales Rank: 26007
Release Date: February 10, 2004
Rated:  
Running Time: 236 minutes
Theatrical Release: December 31, 1969
Studio: Universal Studios


FORMATS

  • Color
  • DVD-Video
  • NTSC


EDITORIAL REVIEWS

Description
Imitation of Life (1934)
In this Academy Award-nominated Best Picture, Claudette Colbert and Louise Beavers are superb as two women with young daughters who build a fortune together. But success doesn't save them from sorrow with the passing years.

Delilah's light-skinned teenager rejects her mother and her race, while Bea must choose between the man she loves and the daughter who loves him, too. Now all of them will pay the price of love in this spellbinding classic.

Imitation of Life (1959)
Lana Turner heads the outstanding cast with Juanita Moore in the second screen version of this emotionally-charged story about two widows and their troubled daughters.

Lora's search for success causes her to neglect her daughter, while Annie's daughter rejects her culture by trying to pass for white. As the years pass, each of the four women realizes that she has been living out an emotionally fruitless existence.


Amazon.com
Imitation of Life (1959)
The last film in Hollywood of director Douglas Sirk (Written on the Wind), the 1959 Imitation of Life--an adaptation of Fannie Hurst's novel--is an endlessly fascinating film that speaks volumes about the American journey toward materialism and the racial tensions that are inseparable from it. Lana Turner plays a white single mother and aspiring actress who takes in a black housekeeper (Juanita Moore) and her daughter (played by an adolescent Susan Kohner), the latter so light-skinned she passes for white. As the years pass and success mounts for Turner, Moore also becomes more comfortable but her status as a domestic never changes. Meanwhile, Kohner's character, chafing against social constraints, rebels at every opportunity and throws a wrench into the perfect order Sirk chillingly captures through the precise, architectural design of his images. On one hand a '50s weepie and on the other a daring allegory, Imitation of Life is an unusual masterpiece. --Tom Keogh


CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 71 reviews)

be yourself  
we are who we are !!!!!the movie helped my students with peer pressure don't change to fit in be your self
May 11, 2008

IMITATION OF LIFE  
I AM VERY HAPPY THAT I PURCHASED THIS TIMELESS CLASSIC. WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER THE ONLY TIME THIS MOVIE WAS SHOWN WAS ON OR AROUND EASTER ANNUALLY. THANK GOD FOR MODERN TECHNOLOGY. I NEVER KNEW THERE WERE TWO
REDICTIONS OF THE MOVIE. I ENJOYED BOTH, BUT THE 1959 VERSION OF THE MOVIE WAS BETTER. DEFINITELY PURCHASE THIS CD.


DEBRA PATRICK
February 27, 2008

Disc Defect  
I could not watch the whole movie. The CD kept freezing up throughout the movie, and then, it totally froze up at the end (the best part). I am very disappointed.
February 13, 2008

GET OUT THE TISSUES . . . MELODRAMA AT ITS TEARY-EYED BEST  
The story might as well have been yanked from today's headlines: love, lust, betrayal, racism, romance and more than tragedy ever packed in 120 hours. Based on the 1933 bestselling novel about two widows and their daughters as they struggle to find true happiness in a world plagued by racism, Imitation of Life is the ultimate tear-jerker. This special edition contains both versions, the original 1934 Best Picture nominee starring Claudette Colbert and the 1959 gem starring Lana Turner. Get out the Kleenex. Make that two boxes.
February 12, 2008

Imitation of Life  
The quality of the movies on DvD is surprisingly good given how old the original master reels are (72 years & 49 years old respectively). The DvD's especially seem nice even on my 42' high definition tv. I was however surprised at the fact that there were not two disk in the packaging. It is a double sided DVD which is very unusual and you need to handle both sides with extreme care, as there is also no silk screening or labels on either side. Again the quality is really good; so if your in it for the movies, it is a good buy.
January 24, 2008


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