Star!
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Movie Reviews of Star!
Movie Review: Ignore the Critics.
Summary: 4 Stars
It is very easy to focus on the fact that upon release, this film was a huge bomb. Indeed, many compare this film to Andrew's previous films, such as "The Sound of Music" and "Mary Poppins" which were wildly successful.
But this film is a different animal completely. The usual family friendly Julie Andrews goes against the grain and portrays Gertrude Lawrence as the selfish, difficult, magnetic woman she came to be.
The meat of this film is the endless parade of magical musical numbers. Well-financed, well-choreographed, and beautifully executed, it is undeniable that this is Andrews at her best.
If you take this film as a showcase for Julie Andrews' talents, it is impossible not to fall in love with "Star!" I say, ignore the critics and watch this movie!
Movie Review: Entertaining and fun!
Summary: 4 Stars
I've always liked this film about Gertrude Lawrence's life and career. Julie Andrews gives a hell of a performance, and her "Saga of Jenny" is awesome to watch. I know from friends of mine who adore the real Ms. Lawrence that they are not fans of this film, but I still find it entertaining!Movie Review: Julie Andrews and Her Songs
Summary: 4 Stars
Film is somewhat slow but the production numbers and songs are a definite, PLUS! The CD to this films is a constant delight at any time.Movie Review: Like sitting through a three hour fashion show with a bunch of old ladies
Summary: 3 Stars
I was 15 when Star! was released and was keen to see it. I saw it on a dreary grey day during Christmas vacation. A friend of mine and I actually saw "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" first (!) and then ran across the street to see "Star!" So there we were, two 15 year old boys surrounded by about fifty old ladies in an enormous movie palace. I felt impending doom. I didn't know who Gertrude Lawrence was and I didn't when it was over, either. I still don't. And isn't so much that Julie is miscast, but that so little information is actually imparted aside from telling us she rather charmingly spent too much money and occasionally was a bit charmingly impatient with some people. That's really about it. You won't see her friend Beatrice Lillie, whom in her original review Pauline Kael said that Julie Andrews might have been able to play the life story of instead. I'm not so sure about that either, but it would have been a lot more fun.
I still to this day wonder what on earth they were thinking when they decided to make a movie about Gertrude Lawrence in the first place. Frankly, a movie about Fanny Brice was pushing it, because by 1968 who past the age of radio knew who she was either, but "Funny Girl" rode a very rocky road on the way to Broadway but by the time it was made into a film, it was, by and large, pretty good. But "Star!" didn't have that luxury, and it bore down like a ton of bricks on Julie Andrews to create a character virtually out of thin air. It tries to suggest a documentary that is being made while she is still alive (so she doesn't die during the run of The King and I and make for a sad ending -- though at least it would have had an ending, because as it is, it doesn't, not really). But the movie is not a documentary, and it isn't a drama, and it isn't a comedy, and it isn't a book musical. It's none of the above and yet it still manages to be conventional. There's lots and lots of music, recorded as if to be played by a rather nice Victrola. I never liked the brassy, abrasive arrangements. It doesn't sound much better on your DVD than the old Fox LP. And Julie is at times not in her best voice, but try listening to Gertrude sometime sing the same things. She must have been electrifying in person because her voice is high, very, very high, yet not hitting those notes dead center by any means.
She's best with Daniel Massey as Noel Coward but those scenes are pretty much the same, over and over. Noel, who you'd think would be fun, comes off as a scolding auntie. And he hated the movie, by the way.
And yet the film looks like a lot of money was spent. It is up on the screen. The clothes are beautiful, the sets are at times very impressive. The mural in her apartment when she is talking on the phone is much more interesting than the scene itself.
Thinking I had judged it unkindly at 15, about 18 years later I saw Saul Chaplin host the screening of the film at the long-closed Vagabond Theatre in Los Angeles (a dump). This was before it was even issued on VHS, and showed up on late night movies in its very truncated Those Were the Happy Times version (don't ask). So if you want to complain about incomplete, for probably 20 years or more, this is all we had of "Star!" Mr. Chaplin still championed the film as a masterpiece and said in 1968 the ungrateful masses wanted to see movies like Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate instead. Well, yes, they did and they still do. I ended up being just as frustrated with the film at 33 as I was when I was 15.
Then around the year 2000, I met Robert Wise. What a warm and kind person he was. He still loved Star!, calling it "A marvelous film. I never understood why it had so little success." He was still disappointed, 32 years later. I must say, I am fascinated by the film, as I am fascinated by "Cleopatra," which no one liked but unlike "Star!", lots of people did go to see what all the fuss was about. But there wasn't much fuss over "Star!"
Now, when I do watch parts of it (which is about all I can manage) I am always transported back to that gloomy 1968 winter day. As my friend and I left the dusty old United Artists Theatre, exhausted and hungry, I said "I feel like I just sat through a three hour fashion show with a bunch of old ladies." I still hold to that sentiment.
Movie Review: "STAR"! IS EXTRAVAGANT AND OVERBLOWN
Summary: 3 Stars
"STAR!" was obvioubly designed to showcase the amazing, versatile talents of Julie Andrews. More specifically,
"STAR!" was designed to prove that Julie Andrews can convincingly play against type as a self-absorbed diva; in this case British stage star Gertrude (Gertie) Lawrence. Well, yes, she CAN play a diva-- but it is not entertaining to watch such a self-absorbed diva for nearly 3 hours!!!!! A better title would have been the word that rhymes with "Witch."
Gertie sits in a projection room watching and often acidly commenting on a romanticized Black and White documentary on her life. We see " the truth about Gertie" in living color. Yet, the film remains strangely distant from its subject. Perhaps to compensate for this, the film is jam-packed full of musical numbers. Director Robert Wise abandons the sensible approach he used to great, award-winning effect in "WEST SIDE STORY" and "THE SOUND OF MUSIC" in favor of all-out extravaganza. Occasionally, Julie gets to be her charming, talented self. She is quite good performing "Burlington Bertie" and "Someone To Watch Over Me"-- and she gets to parade around in a succession of gorgeous gowns designed by the late Donald Brooks. But, by the time Julie literally dances with the devil in the huge "Jenny" finale from "LADY IN THE DARK," it's obvious that more than one show-biz career went to hell as a result of this overblown biopic.
The men in Gertie's life, played by Michael Craig and Robert Reed, come and go. But the real lasting romance was between Gertie and her best friend Noel Coward, superbly portrayed by Daniel Massey. But, Noel was gay (the film never mentions this), so Richard Crenna plays Richard Aldrich, apparently the only heterosexual man who could tame shewish Gertie.
The sequence from Noel Coward's "PRIVATE LIVES" is so good, one wishes Andrews and Massey had done a full film version of Coward's play instead of this biopic. Not surprisingly, the lengthy DVD commentary and Bonus Features are a million times more interesting and entertaining than "STAR!" itself.