Barbara Stanwyck (17 page)

Stephen meets up with his old flame, the widow Morrison (Barbara O'Neil) and her three obnoxiously perfect boys. And then we see an older Stella, her hair a real mess now, her figure dumpy; she still has her dreams, but at this point they're exclusively for her daughter. She isn't so far gone that she can't tidy up in a flash when Laurel's teacher,
Miss Phillobrown (Ann Shoemaker), comes to visit. But one thing she can't tidy up is her Marjorie Main background. She talks loud and makes grammatical mistakes. And every now and then Stanwyck lets off a little flare of panic behind Stella's eyes, as if she knows she might be doing something wrong but isn't sure what.

Some of Stella's problems stem from laziness. Part of her knows that Stephen was right about the surface flaws in her manners, but she doesn't want to put in the work to change them, thinking that she can just slide through. Hey, why not? The teacher leaves, and Laurel, now played by Anne Shirley, finds the birthday dress that Stella has been making for her. This discovery makes Stella yell at Laurel insincerely and then forgive her quickly, a bit of behavior so psychologically accurate to parent/child relations and so outside Stanwyck's own experience that it only serves as proof of the scope of her imagination.

Her performance still gathers in bits of naturalistic detail: “Let me fit it on you instead of the … thing … dummy,” Stanwyck says, stumbling over her words, exposing and using her own verbal awkwardness for Stella's sake. When Laurel objects to an unnecessary bow on her dress, Stella cries, “You're just like your father, you want everything as plain as an old shoe!” (Do frills and furbelows function as protection for Stella, as well as something to catch the eye?) A tipsy Ed Munn comes in and grabs at Laurel in her slip, then howls about getting a kick out of “the young ones being so finicky!” Stella seems agitated by his behavior, but not nearly enough. This is the destructive side of her dazed slowness of mind; she never seems to realize just how close Ed is to abusing Laurel—neither does he, probably, but that's what drinking is for. Alas.

Following this low point, Vidor stages the high point of Ed and Stella's adventures as a platonic couple, a screwball comedy scene where Ed mischievously puts itch powder on his thumb and then shakes hands with a bunch of people on a train. As the people start to itch, Ed begins a running commentary, and Stella reacts just as he wants her to. “I can't stand it!” she cries, choked up with laughter. This is the kind of thing that's difficult for an actor to do, this kind of stifled laughter, but Stanwyck not only does it, she builds on it steadily so that we
have
to laugh along with Stella at Ed's joke.

When two spinsters start scratching, Ed whispers, “They're doin' a sister act … they must have rehearsed!” and Stella gets more hysterical with pleasure. “Stop, you're killing me,” she whines. Then Vidor cuts to a man lifting his toupee to scratch his itch, which acts as a capper and leads Stella and Ed laughing uproariously into the next car. Vidor made
three marvelous comedies with Marion Davies in the late twenties, and he had a talent for scenes like this, even though he rarely used it in his most personal work.

In the 1925 version of
Stella Dallas
, Ed Munn shoots some spitballs at people's heads on the train, but it isn't remotely funny; director Henry King is too much of a prude to ever let us identify with Stella. We all have itches that need to be scratched, but there are some high-minded people who like to pretend that this isn't the case—or at least they seek to rise above such basic needs. When Stella has an itch, she scratches it, regardless of what people think, and of course she finds it hilarious when her friend Ed gets a whole trainful of people scratching away, even those two dignified, dried-up looking old ladies. Ed and Stella collapse in laughter in another car, where a bunch of silent people look up at them. Laurel's teacher, Miss Phillobrown, is in the car. From her point of view, we see Stella with her skirt slightly hiked above the knee, and she does seem drunk with Ed, even though it's only high spirits. “Such women don't deserve to have children,” says Miss Phillobrown's companion. It is a line that comes as an ironic conclusion in Prouty's novel; here, it seems completely heartless and unfair.

Vidor cuts back to Ed, who offers his love to Stella, shyly, and she smiles at him and says, “I don't think there's a man livin' that could get me goin' anymore.” Then, more to the point: “I guess Lolly just uses up all the feelings I got. I don't seem to have any left for anybody else.” Having quieted down, she looks affectionately at Ed and says, “You're such a good sport,” in a low, very serious voice. “Such a lot of fun.” Vidor, who is always on the side of vitality, makes a case for Ed Munn in these two scenes—at least as Hale plays him—and this approval complicates Prouty's material.

In the next scene, we see Stella all dressed up for Laurel's birthday party. She wears huge flowers on one shoulder and a filmy flower print dress with large white fur cuffs around her arms. Laurel tells her mother that she looks beautiful, and Vidor gives Stanwyck a close-up in which she seems radiantly happy, but doubtful, too, as if she feels somehow that Laurel isn't right about this. “Do I?” she asks, using the exact tone of a parent wondering whether she can fully accept a compliment from her own child. By this point, so many of Stella's dreams have been extinguished by the sloppy, indolent life she lives in her apartment. She can't allow herself to believe she's still attractive; everything now is for her daughter.

Miss Phillobrown sends word that she can't make it, and Stella quickly comes in with, “I guess they see enough of her at school, I know I did
my teachers!” Laurel pitifully says that everyone loves Miss Phillobrown, even if what we've seen of her makes her look like a woman unworthy of such love. There's something so sickening about a planned birthday party that no one attends, especially when it's for a child, and no one comes to Laurel's party. They need to punish her mother for laughing too hard with a male friend on a train. That's all it comes down to, really, which is why this midsection of the film works up a fine steam of anger.

Laurel soon falls under the spell of her father's devoted Mrs. Morrison and can't stop talking about her when she gets home. Laurel goes on and on about Mrs. Morrison's complexion, which only needs soap and water, while her mother applies copious amounts of cold cream to her face. “All I can say is there's different kinds of skin,” Stella says, in a dry, deadpan tone. It's a potential laugh line, but Stanwyck keeps us steady with what we know is about to happen. She sits in front of a three-way mirror, but Vidor only shows us two images of Stella, and it often feels like that's what this movie is about: the two faces of Stella, the loud woman who's as vulgar as Gladys George, and the moonbeam girl buried underneath, as sensitive as Katharine Hepburn.

Stella has her chin down and she looks up into the mirror, so that her face seems crushed and moldy, the sorry remains of the pretty girl who preened herself in Millhampton. She spots a part of her hair that needs more hair dye, and then Laurel comes into the frame. “I'll do it,” says her daughter, trying to fix her mother's hair. Stella's eyes look down, and she touches a finger to her mouth; she knows now what's happening, and she knows that she can't stop it. She can't be dignified and cool and matronly, which is what her daughter wants. She's left there by Vidor, her finger to her mouth, suspended in time, pulled in several anguished directions, yet entirely still in herself, as if such stillness might work some miraculous transformation. There are Stanwyck scenes you don't forget, and then there's this scene.

At Christmas, Ed Munn barges in drunk, carrying an unwieldy turkey and holding some mistletoe so he can get a kiss from Laurel (he's always so close to doing something unforgivable to her). When she hears that Stephen is coming, Stella hustles Ed out the back door and goes upstairs to change. She rejects several gaudy outfits and takes out a black dress, making it plainer for her husband by cutting off some lace and ruffles with a pair of scissors. At last, Stella wants to see if she can be what Stephen wants her to be and if they can all be a family. She looks in the mirror and puts on some lip-gloss, then, after a moment's consideration, she takes it off. This action is a link to Stanwyck's films with Capra and
to their idea about truth, which Stella has hidden under a boatload of material junk for some deep-seated, unthinking reason.

Stella wants to “pass” again, but in the right way, without the insecurities of her youth, and she seems to pull it off. Stephen is impressed by her appearance, and he asks her to spend Christmas with him and their daughter as a family. Then, inevitably, Ed Munn comes back in through the front door, and the kicker in this Vidor version is that Ed realizes—all in a flash—that he's spoiled everything for Stella. It's Hale's best scene and a last glimpse of Ed's human side.

Through a lawyer, Stephen asks her for a divorce. A definitively disappointed Stella is at her absolute worst with this lawyer, wearing her clunky clothes like armor, waving her hands around, acting hard-driving and crafty—straightforward and honest, yes—but also 100 percent common and cheap, in the old senses of those words (her worst, though, is far better than Miss Phillobrown's best). Quite disturbed now, not thinking at all clearly, Stella's determined to make a last-ditch effort to be the kind of mother Laurel wants, and so she makes Stephen pay for a fancy resort vacation.

Stella submits to facials and hair treatments, but gets sick (or has a breakdown?) before she can meet anyone at their hotel. Laurel meets rich boy Richard (Tim Holt) on her own while her mother convalesces. We see Stella reduced to a tacky mountain of make-up and hair dye sitting up reading
True Confessions
and eating bon-bons in bed, but when Laurel comes in and bends down to hug her, Stella grabs a strand of her daughter's hair and caresses it gently. The best part of her hasn't been entirely lost.

Outside, Laurel's life becomes, and seemingly
is
, in Vidor's now-uninterested direction, one of those society movies that Stella always wanted to be a part of. But then the Gorgon in Stella rises to the surface, Vidor re-engages, and Stanwyck presents you with the full horror of a middle-aged person who feels the need to act out a grotesque parody of themselves. On top of her Harpo Marx curls, Stella has placed a hat that comes to a big black bow at the top and covers her face with a large spotted veil in front. Her flowered dress clings to every bump and lump in her figure, and her wrists are covered in bracelets that jangle when she moves. About to go outside, she stops, gets a white mink stole, then piles that on top of everything else. She embodies a kind of fashion nightmare, so garish that it feels like someone might arrest her, or at least lead her to the nearest psychiatrist. What is Stella doing here? This is much worse than her usual mistakes with dress. In fact, it seems like
some subconscious but deliberate attempt to sabotage everything, a cry for help, an attempt to bury Stella Martin's stupid dreams once and for all through total self-annihilation.

The outfit is shocking, but Stella's manners are worse. When she insists on tipping a reluctant porter, she brandishes her money at him and cries, “Don't be sill!” Combining society pretensions with Ed Munn slang, she charges around the resort and makes a spectacle of herself in front of the guests, who laugh at her and make mean remarks. This is the key sequence in the film. We know Stella intimately at this point and we know what her problems are. We also know that if we saw someone like Stella wandering around and acting the way she does, we too would most likely laugh at her, as we do at anyone who is different—or anyone who is cursed.

Vidor narrows the scene to social class observation when Laurel's friends jeer at her mother, sotto voce. Tellingly, they call Stella “it,” as in, “Does it talk?” One guy wonders if her hat is going to light up with some kind of advertisement, a line that brings the whole dicey dynamic of Prouty's material to a head. It's partly the materialistic society she lives in that has made Stella what she is. Humiliated, Laurel tells her mother that they have to leave, and Stanwyck plays her dithering, vague reaction perfectly, as if Stella knows what's wrong, but she can't bring herself to face it. In their train berths that night, Stella and Laurel both hear some young girls mocking Stella; they say right out that Laurel will never marry Richard with such a mother. Vidor's camera moves in on Stella's face slowly as she listens, and Stanwyck shows you that Stella already somehow knew how things stand—and knows that now she is going to have to face it.

Stella, still badly dressed, but at her 1919 hopeful best, goes to see Mrs. Morrison. She knows it's too late to change herself, but she doesn't want to destroy her daughter's life like she's destroyed her own. The character of Mrs. Morrison, once again, doesn't make much sense. Her “I understand!” reaction to Stella's plan to send Laurel away feels false. The reality here is the cattiness of those society girls on the train. Whatever her faults, Stella would never be as mean as they are, or as self-righteous and punishing as Miss Phillobrown.

Laurel realizes why her mother is giving her up and so she comes back to her, but Stella uses Ed Munn to drive her daughter out again. After rousing Ed from a drunken flophouse stupor, Stanwyck goes to his door and then shoots him a look, one of those looks of recognition she gave to Lily Powers and Megan Davis, a kind of artistic signature. As always, it's
a recognition of
something
, not something specific, but something about Stella's life in general and how it relates to this old drunk sleeping one off. It's like she's thinking, “This? That's me? That's what I was meant for?” And she answers herself: Yes. Yes, it is. (Stanwyck's nearly Japanese stoicism asserts itself). Kicking Laurel out, Stella now uses her vulgar side, just as she used her sensitive side to nab Stephen. These are just roles she plays, and she'll never be able to reconcile the divided halves of her character. In a nod to her pre-Code past, Stanwyck even puts on a jazz record of “St. Louis Woman,” and this music gets rid of her virtuous daughter once and for all.