Imitation of Life

“Fannie Hurst's best selling novel of today's tormented generation!”

Lora Meredith (Lana Turner) is a widow in 1940s New York, raising her daughter alone and sure that Broadway is where her life is meant to happen. A chance meeting brings a Black single mother into her home as her maid, and the two women set up house with their daughters, Susie (Sandra Dee) and Sarah Jane (Susan Kohner). Douglas Sirk fills the screen with Technicolor gowns and polished interiors, and Mahalia Jackson sings from a church choir.