Stella Dallas Isn't Nice

**Musings on Stella Dallas, 1937, directed by King Vidor, starring Barbara Stanwyck and John Boles

Stella (Barbara Stanwyck) stands in the front yard of the little wood frame house where she lives, book in hand, watching for Stephen Dallas, the wealthy and cultured man she believes will be the way out of the life she was born into.

Part of the allure of Stephen Dallas is that he has a past worthy of a soap opera plot. He was once engaged to a beautiful society girl, but just before they were to wed, his father provokes a major scandal when he commits suicide. Stephen flees his luxurious life and his fiancée, finding a relatively anonymous existence as an executive at the mill where Stella’s father and brother work.

Stella voices her disgust that her brother isn’t more ambitious. When he angrily rejects the bologna she has packed for his lunch, she initially refuses her mother’s request to bring him something better. Then, looking into the mirror, Stella’s eyes become calculating (something no one ever did better than Stanwyck), a tiny smile plays upon her lips, and she suddenly changes her mind.

At the mill, Stella makes her way into Stephen’s office. She is wearing a hat and is dressed in a frilly white dress. She flirts and it takes no time to sink her hooks into the lonely Stephen.

Stella tells Stephen that she wants to learn his way of life. She wants to be educated and say the right things and get in with the right people. Stephen tells her that he likes her the way she is, that he doesn’t want her to change. As Stella is a good girl and doesn’t want to let Stephen kiss her if he isn’t serious, they marry. Trouble starts after Stella gives birth to her daughter, Laurel. The Dallases have been invited to a dance at the River Club. Stephen wants Stella to follow doctor’s orders and rest. Stella sees a chance to get in with the right people.

At the club, Stella dances with Ed Munn. Munn gambles on horses. He is boisterous and loud, which complements Stella’s brassy personality. She laughs uproariously at Munn’s jokes, causing eyebrows to raise and gasps of shock from high society. While Munn has been admitted into the club, and ostensibly has money, he is a gambler. Munn is not acceptable and Stephen will not allow Stella to sit at Munn’s table, nor will he make nice when Stella manipulates her way into another dance.

Back at home, Stephen criticizes the “cheap imitation” jewelry that Stella wears. He tells her that she has to change her behavior, especially since he has a chance to work in New York. Stella doesn’t want to change, nor does she want to go to New York.

She raises Laurel largely on her own. Although Munn is in love with her, she keeps him as a friend. Stephen arrives home one day to find Munn in the house. Munn is drinking bourbon. Someone is banging out a loud tune on the piano. There is a smoldering cigar in the baby’s bowl. Not nice – even though Stella only drinks sarsaparilla and never, ever returns Munn’s occasional advances.

As she approaches adolescence, Laurel seeks culture. Her teacher wants to take her to Boston to art museums. She rides horses, plays tennis. Society finds her. She is a nice girl. Dick, a nice young man from a good family, gives her his fraternity pin. Laurel is part of the smart set. Stella understands this, owning up more than once that Laurel “takes after her father.” Laurel, like her father, does not like adornments, preferring clean lines to frills. Stella doesn’t try to change her daughter, even when she begins to realize that these differences are bound to separate them.

But Laurel isn’t like her father. She loyally stands by her mother, even after her teacher, a nice lady, sees Stella and Munn laughing uproariously on the train (apparently nice people don’t laugh, especially with members of the opposite sex), and decides that she will not attend Laurel’s birthday party (no one showed up), or when Stella becomes the object of ridicule at the exclusive hotel they rent for a summer. Stella, wearing too much makeup, a mink stole, jangly bracelets, and little bells on her shoes, marches across the club past the ladies who lunch poolside, past the golf course in search of the mother of Laurel’s new beau. She is oblivious to the smirks and snide comments. Until this scene, Stella has shut herself off from the others, choosing to spend her days in bed reading movie magazines, munching bonbons.

We initially take Laurel’s wish to depart the hotel as a sign that she is ashamed of her mother, but then the realization comes that Laurel only wanted to protect Stella - to the point of turning her back on a seemingly dazzling future.

In the course of the film, Stella’s appearance will undergo a transformation. She never sheds the “cheap imitation” jewelry; on the contrary, the lace that trims her collars gets wider, she is wrapped in feathers and fur and animal prints. She is steadfast in her garishness – it represents her unwillingness to conform to a society that doesn’t want her. Stella may look cheap, but she’s honest.

Stella dresses down only once when she makes her one and only attempt to lure Stephen back into her life. She opens up a closet clogged full of frills, thoughtfully selects a dress and rips off the lace. She dabs on lipstick, then wipes it off. The ruse works for a bit, until an inebriated Munn appears, making Stephen recall his earlier belief that Stella is bad news.

She stands in stark contrast to the stately Helen, Stephen’s former fiancée, who Laurel describes as being like one of the goddesses from mythology. As Stella enters Helen’s marbled, Grecian New York mansion, decked out in a big hat in the shape of a bow tie on frizzy, bottle blond hair, a bulky printed coat and many strings of plastic pearls around her neck, she never looks more like a fish out of water. Helen, wearing a simple silk dressing gown, receives her graciously. Here Stella is at her most vulnerable, as she relinquishes her husband and her daughter to Helen so that Laurel can have a (seemingly) better life. Stella has given up on herself; her own dreams never came to fruition. She has become sad and dowdy; her former feisty spark is gone.

In Stella Dallas, it’s all about appearances. Stella is part of the common folk; her initial manipulative urges desert her as caring for Laurel becomes more important. Although Stella pursues Stephen so that she have a good life with the right people, it doesn’t take her long to realize that she is unable to change. She is unwilling to remove herself from Munn, who is unacceptable company for nice people who live a nice life. Stella is simply herself.

And so Stella stands in the rain, watching Laurel get married through a window. We assume that Laurel, while hoping that her mother will come to the wedding (assuming Helen sent her an invitation), will live happily ever after with Dick, surrounded by polo ponies, tennis courts, dogs with pedigrees, and fancy garden parties. And we wonder if Stella is truly the loser, now that she has released herself from ever having to deal with the nice people.