Imitation of Life (1934 film)

Imitation of Life is a 1934 American drama film directed by John M. Stahl. The screenplay by William Hurlbut, based on Fannie Hursts 1933 novel of the same name, was augmented by eight additional uncredited writers, including Preston Sturges and Finley Peter Dunne. The film stars Claudette Colbert, Warren William and Rochelle Hudson and features Louise Beavers and Fredi Washington.

White widow Bea Pullman Claudette Colbert and her toddler daughter Jessie Juanita Quigley, take in black housekeeper Delilah Johnson Louise Beavers and her daughter Peola Sebie Hendricks, whose fair complexion reveals her mixedrace ancestry. Bea exchanges room and board for work, although struggling to make ends meet. Delilah and Peola quickly become like family to Jessie and Bea. They particularly enjoy Delilahs pancakes, made from a special family recipe. Five years later, Jessie Marilyn Knowlden and Peola prove to be challenging children to raise Jessie is demanding, not particularly studious, relying instead on her charm. She is the first person to call Peola black in a hurtful way, making it clear that their childhood idyll is doomed. Peola does not tell her classmates at school that she is colored and is humiliated when her mother shows up one day, revealing her secret.Selling pancake syrup, Bea finds it difficult to make a living as her husband had done. Using her wiles to get a storefront on the busy Atlantic City boardwalk refurbished for practically nothing, she opens a pancake restaurant, where Delilah cooks in the front window. Later, at the suggestion of a passerby, Elmer Smith Ned Sparks, she sets up an even more successful pancake flour corporation, marketing Delilah as an Aunt Jemimalike product mascot. She offers Delilah ainterest in her family recipe, but childlike, Delilah refuses and continues to act as Beas housekeeper and factotum, the shares held presumably in trust. Bea becomes wealthy from her business, but ten years later, the two older women are confronted with problems. ........

Source: Wikipedia