The great Barbara Stanwyck stars in this classic weepie about a mother who does anything to preserve her daughter's future, even if it means sacrificing herself in the worst way imaginable. Stella is a lower class girl who marries a rich man and has a daughter named Laurel, but when the marriage goes south she realizes that she's just not fancy enough to give Laurel everything she needs for the better life she wanted her to have. So Stella does the "right" thing and gives Laurel up to her father and his new, classier wife. The sensibilities of the movie are a little old-fashioned (is it really in Laurel's best interest to think her own mother, who she loves, never wants to see her again just because she doesn't fit in with the upper class?), but it rips the tears out of you as hard as possible, and Stanwyck carries the movie as she always does, with spunky ferocity and humor that showed you just what a tough gal she really was. She is the movie, and that's what makes it a great pick for Mother's Day.
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