In both, the mother is a performer – Becky is a singer, while the Lana Turner character in Sirk's film is an actress – whose career takes precedence over a young daughter; mother and daughter are rivals over a man; both films begin with the child separated from her mother at a holiday resort; and at one point, Rebeca tells her mother to stop acting, a phrase borrowed from Sirk's film. Imitation of Life was both a remake and a reinterpretation of an earlier film – the 1934 version by John M. Stahl – and so High Heels is very much Almodóvar's own film, distinguished throughout by his particular style and concerns. With its tense mother–daughter dynamic, it also pointedly nods to Michael Curtiz's Mildred Pierce (1945), though in that film it is the mother, a businesswoman, who obsessively loves her daughter. In Stella Dallas (1937), directed by King Vidor, the same kind of relationship is also prominent, though here, the mother Stella is neither an artist nor a businesswoman but a lower-class woman who has social aspirations for her daughter. It alludes both to the films made by Turner and Joan Crawford and to their lives, to the relationship between Turner, whose lover was killed by her daughter, and to the tumultuous relationship between Crawford and her daughter Christina. See also List of submissions to the 64th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film List of Spanish submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film References Bibliography External links 1991 films 1991 drama films 1991 LGBT-related films 1990s Spanish-language films Best Foreign Film César Award winners Ciby 2000 films Drag (clothing)-related films El Deseo films Films about mother–daughter relationships Films about singers Films about television people Films directed by Pedro Almodóvar Films produced by Agustín Almodóvar Films scored by Ryuichi Sakamoto Films set in Madrid Films shot in Madrid French drama films French LGBT-related films LGBT-related drama films Murder mystery films Spanish drama films Spanish LGBT-related films Spanish Sign Language films Spanish-language French films TF1 Films Production films 1990s French films 1990s Spanish films