Warner Brothers wasn’t the only movie studio with a social conscience in the 30’s. Imitation of Life, from Universal, was one of two 1934 films with Claudette Colbert and Warren William.
Aunt Jemima pancake flour is the basis for this story about class and race, with a devastating portrayal of a black girl who passes for white. There is also a Freudian angle, with a girl falling in love with her mother’s fiancé, who represents the father she never had.