A Star Is Born
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Movie Reviews of A Star Is Born
Movie Review: Judy's Personal Favorite May Be Yours, Too
Summary: 5 Stars
According to "other" daughter Lorna Luft, mom Judy Garland told her that of all her films, A Star Is Born was her most satisfying. When you see the new DVD version of it, you will understand why. Totally self-absorbed as most geniuses were, Garland could best identify with roles that mirrored her own life, just as she was better than anyone (except perhaps Sinatra) at injecting her own psyche into the lyrics of a song. Not only was the role of ambitious aspiring star Esther was a familiar one to Judy, but also the role of weary, dissipated alcholic superstar Norman Maine, Esther's supportive husband, was far from alien to her. That Judy could so closely identify with both the lead roles might explain why she had had her eye on A Star is Born for years before the project came into fruition. She had, in fact, played the role of Esther in A Star is Born in a radio version of the film years before, while an MGM star. She badgered MGM chief Louis B. Mayer to re-make the 1937 film as a star vehicle for her but was told, perhaps correctly at the time, "Nobody wants to see you as the wife of an alcoholic."
Judy and husband Sid Luft, a sometime Hollywood manager/promoter, managed to make a deal with Warner Brothers head Jack Warner that established a partnership to turn out several films, the first among them A Star Is Born. Firstly it was necessary to put a good crew in place, and to head it all was legendary director George Cukor, whose film successes are too numerous to mention, but was often noted as being a great
"woman's director." Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin were selected to write new songs, most noteworthy among them being "The Man that Got Away." The cinematography and costumes are top-rate,
and you WON'T be aware of how good the supporting players are because they perform so well that you won't notice they are acting. Jack Carson as the bitter, acid-tongued agent Libby particularly noteworthy. James Mason is perfect casting as the handsome, dashing and successful actor Norman Maine who throws it all away for booze, yet Judy's first choice was Cary Grant. Grant, realizing that Judy had the plum role, turned down her offer. It is probable too that the fastidious Grant would not permit himself to behave in the disheveled look of a has-been boozer. It was rumored that Humphrey Bogart also sought the husband's role, but the Lufts turned down this possibility due to the stars' glaring age difference. The Moss Hart script is tight, witty and heart-breaking as we see Esther's rise and Norman's fall from stardom.
But to Garland. It is the role of a lifetime and the screen perfomance of a lifetime. Her screen role, like her real-life
persona, was harrowingly bi-polar, and whether you want to or not, you'll be on her rollercoaster ride of joyous highs and bottomless lows. Whether singing, dancing, clowing around or weeping in the depths of despair, your eyes will be riveted to her.
Ironically, A Star Is Born was not profitable for Warner Brothers and the Luft-Warners deal was canceled. When business fell off dramatically for the legendary "long version" of the film, Warner had the film pared down several minutes without the Lufts' participation. This was so each movie house could add an extra showing, to increase box office. The resulting shorter film is what most people have seen over the years on television and on VHS. The new DVD shows as much of the butchered original version as possible. Warner himself appears in some of the special added informative material, but don't believe he is as cheerful as he seems. Judy Garland was extremely difficult. Most geniuses are.
Movie Review: Garland's Shining Hour in a Pristine Print of Her Legendary Vehicle
Summary: 5 Stars
Marked by a pervasive sense of melancholy, the 1954 musical version of the familiar Hollywood warhorse will forever be remembered as Judy Garland's most acclaimed work in films. Even though she would go on to a handful of films in the early 1960's, this was her last leading role in a major Hollywood production, an ironic point since she plays an emerging movie star on the rise. True, she doesn't look her best in the film, but her fulsome talent is on full, heart-wrenching display as Esther Blodgett, an obscure but thriving band singer who becomes movie star Vicki Lester thanks to Norman Maine, an alcoholic has-been actor in career free-fall. Their love story and the opposing trajectories of their careers are tracked meticulously by Moss Hart's shrewdly observed screenplay and George Cukor's sensitive direction.
The double-sided 2000 DVD provides the 176-minute restored version, which is just five minutes less than what was shown at the original premiere. Until 1983, the half-hour of footage excised after the premiere was thought lost, but film historian Ron Haver found much of it and supervised an extraordinary restoration effort that includes a necessary albeit brief use of production stills to match up with the complete soundtrack. Even with such technicalities, the resulting film is even more of a landmark musical drama, emotionally resonant in spite of certain pacing issues with the storyline. Cukor's approach is probably more leisurely than the relatively hard-boiled material requires since he includes so many establishing and lengthy shots, but his direction shows his legendary sensitivity toward actors.
While he comes across a bit too robust as a fading matinee idol, James Mason vigorously captures Norman's scornful pride and self-pity. He may lack Fredric March's innate sense of vulnerability in the original, but Mason makes the character's inner torment more palpable. As for Garland, she brings so much of her own history to Esther/Vicki that her scenes feel alive with her vibrant, masochistic personality. She is aided immeasurably by the masterful songs of Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin, most significantly her torchy rendition of "The Man That Got Away", as perfect a musical movie moment as has been ever produced. While her work in the fifteen-minute "Born in the Trunk" sequence is impressive, it is really later in the film when she soars, in particular, when she segues from the tap-happy "Lose That Long Face" into a breakdown scene in her dressing room with sympathetic studio head Oliver Niles portrayed with his typically stentorian fervor by Charles Bickford.
The print condition and sound quality on the DVD are superb. There are also some fascinating extras on the B-side starting with three alternative takes on "The Man That Got Away", each distinctive in presentation with costume and lighting changes, a must for Garland fans. Also included is a very brief deleted number within the "Born in the Trunk" sequence", "When My Sugar Walks Down the Street". Three vintage pieces have been gathered - a brief newsreel piece of the premiere, a four-minute clip of the Coconut Grove premiere party held after the premiere, and most interestingly, a half-hour kinescope akin to the current-day red carpet pre-shows with an amazing parade of period stars expressing little more than good wishes on their way to the theater. Lastly, the theatrical trailers for all three versions of "A Star Is Born" are also included.
Movie Review: Garland Is Great, Mason Still Greater
Summary: 5 Stars
It's hard to impossible to believe that George Cukor's 1954 musical remake of A STAR IS BORN was ever a box-office failure or considered to be anything less than a perfect movie. Opening with a Hollywood premiere scene similar to the one that begins SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, A STAR IS BORN quickly proves itself a brilliant expose of the cruelty and greed of the Hollywood "star" system. In the now-famous plotline, alcoholic movie actor Norman Maine (James Mason) "discovers" aspiring singing star Esther Blodgett (Judy Garland), takes a chance on her talent (she has that "little something extra," he says), and gets her a screen test and a film contract. She slowly but surely becomes a star, while Norman's "star" falls due to his drinking. They marry, but even Esther's love cannot save Norman from ultimate self-destruction. This plot summary suggests a "show-within-a-show"-type musical, and in fact A STAR IS BORN sometimes presents us with a show-within-a-show-within-a-show (we watch Esther watching herself on the big screen, and in her movie she plays a performer) - a conceit that gives the film a disoriented quality, even as Norman is himself unable to distinguish between illusion and reality.
One could almost call A STAR IS BORN the musical for people who normally dislike musicals: its drama - and particularly Norman's personal drama - is of Shakespearean stature, and all of its musical numbers are either of the "onstage" variety or the "one character [Esther] singing to entertain another character [Norman]" variety; there is, in other words, no artifice that would be at odds with realistic drama. Moreover, Judy Garland's singing is so inspired as to disarm any criticism. "The Man That Got Away," the song that first attracts Norman to Esther, is a classic sequence, from Garland's hummed notes at the beginning to the way the brass matches the power of her voice at the song's climaxes. Garland has other great numbers, too (all, except those comprising the "Born in a Trunk" sequence, written by the team of Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin), including "Lose That Long Face," "It's a New World," and "Here's What I'm Here For," a song symbolic of Esther's willingness to sacrifice everything to care for her husband.
While Judy's performance is great, James Mason's is greatness itself. His brilliance as Norman Maine lies in the fact that he never allows this tortured man to seem merely pathetic to others; even as he plans his own suicide, he puts a good face on the situation with the help of his good looks and uniquely English wit and charm. The movie's villain is Norman's press agent (Jack Carson, an actor not known for playing villains), who out of jealousy and spite undermines Norman's courageous effort to stop drinking, by making him believe he can never be anything better than a drunk. Charles Bickford is the well-meaning studio head, whose flaw is that he is too cautious and conventional in his attempts to help Norman.
Clocking in at three hours (even with a freeze-frame device telescoping some of the action), A STAR IS BORN is a strange film, a combination of backstage musical, Hollywood expose, love story, tragedy, and inspirational story. That it wasn't fully understood or appreciated when it first appeared is perhaps understandable after all, but it should no longer be neglected.
Movie Review: Exceptional
Summary: 5 Stars
Judy Garland was an actress of the true MGM mold - that is to say, she knew how to do it bigger, better and louder than everybody else. True of her life, her concert performances and most of her film appearances, and in this 1954 release, she does Warner Bros. proud by being her good old MGM self for an almost three-hour epic.Surely one of Hollywood's most melodramatic love stories, 'A Star is Born' follows the lives of Esther Blodgett (Garland), a talented star on the rise, and Norman Maine (James Mason), a once-major talent in fast alcoholic decline. They suffer the slings and arrows of the Hollywood machine, and in the end, only one career can survive.
What's truly unique about 'A Star Is Born' is the palpable sincerity and tenderness with which Mason and Garland play their parts. Mason is on top form as Norman maine, and gives a wholly believable account of a man seeking redemption through nurturing a new talent. He's a perfect match for Judy in every way - where her performance is big and larger-than-life, so is his. The actors have a delightful chemistry, a believable bond that fixes us to their story.
Garland gives what must be the greatest performance of her career, imbuing the realtively ordinary part of Blodgett with a luminosity and innocence rarely portrayed in film. When she cries, we truly believe she is sad. When she smiles, we are happy for her. But when she sings, she opens up her character to the audience in a way quite unlike any other. Even in her big, blowzy numbers like 'Swannee' and 'You Gotta Have Me Go With You', she lets her vulnerability and frailty shine through, and we are truly in awe of her. Seminal classics like 'The Man That Got Away' and 'Swannee' are here too, and still ring out as some of the finest examples of songwriting and musical arrangement anywhere.
The supporting cast, though for the most part perfectly sufficient, includes an excellent performance by Tommy Noonan as Esther's friend and advisor, Danny McGuire.
Direction by George Cukor, is, as ever, exemplary, and sets a standard that few directors have ever managed to equal. He is surely the only man in Hollywood's history to bring such believable humanity to the likes of Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, and Judy garland. His portrayal of a doomed relationship and the effects it has is still as valid today as it was fifty years ago. Using simple, uncomplicated shots and perfectly-pitched performances, Cukor creates the ideal stage on which Garland and Mason play.
The Special Features of this DVD are wonderful - the mini-documentary of the premiere party at Coconaut Grove is a gorgeous slice of a glamorous Hollywood that we'll probably never see again. There are more versions of 'The Man That Got Away' than you can shake a stick at, and 'When My Sugar Walks Down The Street' is a charming, if somewhat pointless, inclusion. The actual DVD quality is excellent, for a movie that's half a century old. Unfortunately, the 'restored scenes' are little more than a series of blurry still shots and audio tracks, but are an important inclusion nonetheless.
All in all, 'A Star Is Born', in terms of technical quality, extras and, most importantly, film standard, is one of the best films of all time. A must-have that I cannot recommend highly enough.
Movie Review: Lose that Long Footage
Summary: 5 Stars
I love A Star Is Born and I have ever since I saw it first, on TV. I couldn't figure out how Judy Garland was so old looking, and my father said, "It's because she's been around the mill," so I thought until a recent viewing that she was a millworker while financing her musical career with Danny's band. Seeing it again, it seems fine that she's not a young girl just starting out, what kind of story would that be? We want someone who's been hurt by life and who has unexplained traumas in her past (watch closely now, as Garland's face darkens as she remembers waiting tables. "I'll never do that again," she vows, and I'm thinking, I was a waiter, it wasn't that bad!).... we don't want a Lola Lavery to be the center of the movie. Well, "Lost in Translation" by Sofia Coppola was a little bit like a Star is Born remake, wasn't it? The mistake of that movie was in assuming we'd find the heroine enchanting because of Scarlet Johansson's unlived in face and attitude.
Well, enough about that, I just wanted to reiterate that, for the most part, Robert Osborne, Judy Garland was not 15 years too old to play the part.
The movie progresses in infinitely small, naturalistic bumps between one scene and the next, so that we get an almost novelistic drenching in textures and atmospheres, all in the service of character development. And yet the movie seems "written" only in its setpieces, the scenes we all remember, where the characters all more eloquent than we imagine they would actually be in "real life." I noticed last night how the film progresses by revelation, and everything moving the plot forward is something overheard by the protagonists, that shatters their views of reality. Norman's all content after Esther performs her big "production number to end all production numbers," but then he signs for the delivery boy who calls him "Mr. Lester." Norman at the race track, Libby making a hash of his face, and hearing people whisper (no, not even whisper, shouting) "He's drunk... He's been drunk for years."
Finally the big, and satisfying shock, when Norman overhears Oliver's real opinion of his acting. The scene should have won James Mason an Oscar, but Charles Bickford is also supremely skillful at delivering the speech in question. Tom Noonan's big speech bucking up Esther is well done too... you can't believe she's going to fall for such hokum, and then, when she does, you realize her character has changed and she has "gone Hollywood" in a real, and terrible way.
Loved the dressing room at Oliver Niles studios, and the seaside house Norman builds for Esther, but actually I liked the Oleander Arms the best, I think. It is the most glamorous and evocative motel I've ever seen in the movies or out of them.
But it is a long movie that's for sure. At the Intermission credit I seriously considered pressing "exit," under the belief that all the succeeding scenes had been scarred into my memory ever since my mill-working days. But I'm glad I stayed! I cried, but even when I was crying I thought how vain of Esther to tell Norman, "Oh, I'll sing to you from the kitchen window, my soft wondering number It's a New World, and yet you'll hear me over the pounding Malibu surf."