Stella Dallas
About Stella Dallas
After his father kills himself over embezzled funds, Stephen Dallas hides in a mill town and marries Stella Martin. She dresses loudly and keeps company with the horseman Ed Munn, and Stephen leaves her with their daughter Laurel. When Laurel grows up, Stella agrees to a divorce so Stephen can marry the widowed Helen and give the girl that house, but Laurel will not leave. Stella tells Laurel she is going to marry Ed, now a drunkard, and sends her to her father for a year. Laurel marries Richard Grosvenor, and Stella watches the ceremony from the rain outside, then walks away.
Cast & crew
More about Stella Dallas
Samuel Goldwyn produced and Frances Marion adapted Olive Higgins Prouty's 1923 novel. It premiered on 16 November 1925 at the Apollo Theatre in New York and went out through United Artists on 22 November. The copyright is LP22421, 24 February 1926.
Themes
Reviews
Charles S. Sewell, in The Moving Picture World of 28 November 1925, wrote it up as one of the finest pictures to come through the box office.
Look
Arthur Edeson photographed it, 11 reels totaling 10,157 feet, standard 35mm.
Music
Silent, with English intertitles.
Preservation
Prints survive in several archives. Silent Era records a 16mm reduction positive, and the film is public domain in the United States.
Notes
- Variety's 21 October 1925 note is the source of the $500,000 cost. The $1,500,000 take is the figure in Quigley's 1937-38 almanac of all-time sellers.
- Belle Bennett plays Stella, Ronald Colman plays Stephen, Lois Moran plays Laurel, and Alice Joyce plays Helen.
- Jean Hersholt is Ed Munn. Douglas Fairbanks Jr., then 15, is Richard Grosvenor.
- Stuart Heisler edited. The negative is 11 reels, 10,157 feet.
- A later film of the same novel, directed by King Vidor, opened in 1937, and Stella (1990) is another version of the book.
Scenes
- Stella tells Laurel she will marry Ed so the girl will go to her father.
- She stands in the rain and watches Laurel's wedding through the window.
Influenced by
- Olive Higgins Prouty's novel Stella Dallas (1923)
