One of the saddest and most beautiful stories I've ever read, Stella Dallas is the story of a mother's unselfish love and wish for the very best for her daughter. Living in a snobbish community, pretty, ambitious, young Stella never had any idea but that she deserved the best that life had to give. She had access to it when she married Stephen Dallas, a young man from a good family name. But she could never give up the compulsion she had for receiving attention from men, and couldn't understand why it was not acceptable to her husband and others from the"smart set." This was her downfall in the uptight times and place her character occupied. When she found she was pregnant, she was at first horrified at the thought of what it would mean to her figure and her social calendar, to be a mother. But her love for"Lollie" grew, and Stella sacrificed everything so that Lollie could have the life Stella knew she deserved. ( )

This is one of those books that can make you tear up even if you think you won't. It's the story of a mother's ultimate sacrifice for her daughter, so that she may have the life that her mother believes that she deserves.

Stella Dallas marries Steven Dallas shortly after they meet when he was going through a personal crisis and he is being just a bit self destructive. When their daughter Laurel is born, Stella loves her daughter desperately, but isn't quite the mother figure that he had pictured for his child. She in turn finds Steven a lot less fun than he used to be and looks for excitement in all the wrong places. When Steven has had enough of Stella's indiscreet flirtations, he leaves her, although they do not divorce right away.

Stella's heart has always had good intentions, unfortunatly she doesn't mix well with the upper crust Boston society and is shunned for her style of dress and her manners. Realizing that she is standing in the way of Laurel's future in society, she pushes her daughter away to be with her father and his new wife and just to make sure that Laurel will never return, Stella marries a man that Laurel hates, an alcoholic/drug addict.

Brought to the screen in 1937, and played to perfection by Barbara Stanwyck, this is another instance where the book and movie are both excellent. ( )