Stella Dallas (1925 film)
{{Short description|1925 film}}
{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2020}}
{{Infobox film
| name = Stella Dallas
| image = Stella Dallas poster.jpg
| caption = Film poster
| director = Henry King
| producer = Samuel Goldwyn
| based_on = {{based on|Stella Dallas
1923 novel|Olive Higgins Prouty}}
| writer = Frances Marion
| starring = Ronald Colman
Belle Bennett
Lois Moran
| cinematography = Arthur Edeson
| editing = Stuart Heisler
| studio = Samuel Goldwyn Productions
| distributor = United Artists
| released = {{film date|1925|11|16}}
| runtime = 110 minutes
| country = United States
| language = Silent (English intertitles)
}}
File:Stella Dallas (1925).webm
Stella Dallas is a 1925 American silent drama film that was produced by Samuel Goldwyn, adapted by Frances Marion, and directed by Henry King. The film stars Ronald Colman, Belle Bennett, Lois Moran, Alice Joyce, Jean Hersholt, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.[http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/DetailView.aspx?s=&Movie=12407 The AFI Catalog of Feature Films: Stella Dallas][https://web.stanford.edu/~gdegroat/AJ/reviews/stellad.htm Stella Dallas at The Alice Joyce Website, by Greta De Groat] Prints of the film survive in several film archives.{{cite web |url=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.mbrs.sfdb.776/default.html |title=Stella Dallas |access-date=January 9, 2014 |work=American Silent Feature Film Survival Database}}
This was the first feature film adaptation of the 1923 novel Stella Dallas by Olive Higgins Prouty. Subsequent film versions were Stella Dallas (1937) and Stella (1990).
Plot
As described in a review in a 1925 film magazine,{{cite journal |last=Sewell |first=Charles S. |author-link= |title=Through the Box Office Window: Stella Dallas; Samuel Goldwyn Picture One of Finest Ever Made, Is Truly a Dramatic and Emotional Masterpiece |journal=The Moving Picture World |volume=77 |issue=4 |pages=342 |publisher=Chalmers Publishing Co. |location=New York City |date=28 November 1925 |url=https://archive.org/details/movpicwor77movi/page/n311/mode/1up |access-date=11 October 2021}} {{Source-attribution}} upon the suicide of his father who has embezzled funds, Stephen Dallas (Colman), reared in luxury, forsakes his sweetheart Helen (Joyce) and hides in a mill town.
Lonely, he succumbs to the blandishments of Stella (Bennett). For a while, their married life is happy, and a baby girl is born. Stella, however, never rises to Stephen's social level. She dresses gaudily, her ideas and tastes are crude, and her boon companion is a horseman of the coarse type. Stephen finally leaves her but agrees she can keep their child, Laurel.
Years pass. Laurel (Moran) grows up. Stella comes to the realization that she is a drag on Laurel who takes after her father. Stifling her pride she agrees to a divorce so that Stephen can marry Helen, now a widow, to provide Laurel with a proper home and "mother," but Laurel refuses to leave her own mother. Stella, deciding that no sacrifice is too great for her daughter's happiness, hunts for her friend Ed (Hersholt), now a drunkard, and tells Laurel she is going to marry him. She sends her to visit her father and claims that she and Ed are going away for a year.
Laurel resumes her romance with a fine young fellow and marries him, and Stella in the rain outside watches the ceremony and leaves weeping but happy that her sacrifice has not been in vain.
Cast
{{Cast listing|
- Ronald Colman as Stephen Dallas
- Belle Bennett as Stella Dallas
- Alice Joyce as Helen Morrison
- Jean Hersholt as Ed Munn
- Beatrix Pryor as Mrs. Grosvenor
- Lois Moran as Laurel Dallas
- Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as Richard Grosvenor
- Charles Willis Lane as Stephen Dallas Sr.
- Vera Lewis as Mrs. Tibbetts
- Maurice Murphy as Morrison child
- Jack Murphy as Morrison child
- Newton Hall as Morrison child
- Charles Hatton as Morrison child (older)
- Robert W. Gillette as Morrison child (older)
- Winston Miller as Morrison child (older)
}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{Commons category-inline|Stella Dallas (1925 film)|Stella Dallas (1925 film)}}
- {{wikisource-inline|Stella Dallas (1925 film)|Stella Dallas (1925 film)|single=true}}
- {{IMDb title|id=0016395}}
- {{tcmdb title|id=500663}}
- {{AFI film|id=12407|title=Stella Dallas}}
- [https://web.stanford.edu/~gdegroat/AJ/reviews/stellad.htm Stills] at Alice Joyce, stanford.edu
- [https://archive.org/details/pressbook-ua-stella-dallas-1925/page/16/mode/2up United Artists Pressbook] on the Internet Archive
- [https://silentfilm.org/stella-dallas/ Stella Dallas program notes for 2012 San Francisco Silent Film Festival]
{{Henry King}}
{{Stella Dallas}}
{{Samuel Goldwyn}}
{{Authority control}}
Category:American silent feature films
Category:Silent American drama films
Category:American black-and-white films
Category:1920s English-language films
Category:Films about social class
Category:Films directed by Henry King
Category:Films with screenplays by Frances Marion