MOVIE · 1937

Stella Dallas

DramaRomance106 min

Barbara Stanwyck is Stella, a working-class mother determined to secure a more socially promising future for her daughter, even when that goal puts distance between her own life and the one she wants the girl to have. As class expectations press in, family bonds become tangled with status, marriage, and the painful choices that come with trying to move up. John Boles and Anne Shirley co-star in a domestic melodrama centered on maternal sacrifice and the widening gap between affection and social ambition.