The Warner Archive October 2017 DVD release of the pre-Code 1933 MGM musical melodrama "Stage Mother" provides further proof that things have not changed much in 85 years. This tale of the titular force of nature using her feminine wiles and other weapons to advance the career of her daughter is as relevant today as it was when it was made.
The opening scene of a vaudeville comic teasing audience members is an early indication that "Mother" is from the era of transitioning from silents to talkies. This also sets the stage (no pun intended) for the action to follow. Pregnant trouper Kitty Lorraine (Alice Brady of classics such as "My Man Godfrey" and "The Gay Divorcee") is on modified duty but is there to cheer up husband/showbiz partner Fred only to soon become widowed.
The challenges of being a Depression-era single mother and other desperate times prompts this "actress" to take the desperate measure of moving herself and infant daughter Shirley to the home of the proper Bostonian parents of Fred. The scene is which we meet the parents also has a strong silents vibe.
Things are relatively tolerable for the next four years until that extended period of repression causes Kitty to snap and rejoin the vaudeville circuit; the shot-from-behind four-year-old Shirley in this portion of the film either is an uncredited Shirley Temple or an excellent facsimile; Internet research did not resolve this question.
Kitty subsequently begins earning her titular description when enrolling an objecting Shirley in dance classes. Kitty not-so-subtly offering her body as an incentive for the refined and effeminate dance teacher to give Shirley special treatment is hilarious for a different reason in 2017 than in 1933.
This leads to the rapid rise of the career of Shirley with backstage help from her mother, who shows that there is nothing that she will not do to make her daughter the star whom Kitty failed to become.
Kitty temporarily being sidelined becomes a blessing and a curse for an adult Shirley, who enters a career-threatening romance with handsome and charming painter Warren Foster; these lovebirds are the center of a wonderfully suggestive pre-Code scene that indicates that Shirley now is a woman in every sense of the word.
Kitty learning of the romance through a typically underhanded method has her contribute to the disgrace of her daughter by manipulating Warren into no longer wanting to buy the cow.
The next stage in both senses of the word occurs in New York, where Shirley literally gets her name in lights on Broadway; she also enters the third ill-fated romance of which the audience is aware.
More ruthlessness leads to Stage Mommie Dearest and her offspring going to England, where history repeats itself but ends in a twist that shows that the apple as a symbol of sin does not fall far from the root of all that evil.
"Stage" offers further entertainment in the form of commonality with "Stella Dallas;" both titular women marry men from wealthy families only to find themselves struggling to provide what they think is the best life for their daughters, who view things differently. Each film further features a crude step-father figure.
Anyone with questions or comments regarding "Stage" is encouraged either to email me or to connect on Twitter via @tvdvdguy.
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