Watch A Star Is Born For Free

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

A lot of fun.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Copyright 7 June 1937 by Selznick International Pictures, Inc. Released through United Artists. New York opening at Radio City Music Hall, 22 April 1937 (ran 3 weeks). U.S. release: 30 April 1937. 12 reels. 111 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Unknown becomes star but finds that professional success doesn't bring domestic bliss.NOTES: Academy Award, Color Photography, W. Howard Greene. Academy Award, Original Story, William A. Wellman and Robert Carson (defeating Black Legion, In Old Chicago, The Life of Emile Zola, 100 Men and a Girl).Also nominated for Best Picture (The Life of Emile Zola), Best Actor, Fredric March (Spencer Tracy in Captains Courageous), Best Actress, Janet Gaynor (Luise Rainer in The Good Earth), Best Directing (Leo McCarey for The Awful Truth), Assistant Director (In Old Chicago), Screenplay (The Life of Emile Zola).Number 4 on The Film Daily annual poll of U.S. film critics. Negative cost: $1,221,382. Initial domestic rental gross: $2,550,000.Shooting commenced 31 October 1936 and finished 28 December 1936. Re-made in 1954 and again in 1976. The 1954 version starring Judy Garland, James Mason, Charles Bickford and Jack Carson, directed by George Cukor, is the best.COMMENT: A bit disappointing to see the original after all these years. Gaynor is no match for Judy Garland in the 1954 version. She looks far too old for the part. (She was in fact only 31, but the color camera is most unflattering. Nevertheless A Star Is Born was the high point of her professional career. Two films later, she married Adrian and retired, returning to the screen only once, co- starring with Pat Boone in the 1957 Bernadine.) The miscasting of Gaynor throws the whole film out of balance and off-key. March, however, does remarkably well and is more than a match for Mason in what is basically an unsympathetic part. We also much prefer Menjou to Bickford (a dull, heavy actor even at the best of times). Stander's vicious press agent is evenly matched with Jack Carson's 1954 interpretation. In each case, the role has been cleverly tailored by the writers to suit the player's distinctive personality. In fact, it's remarkable how closely the Garland remake follows the original script, merely eliminating the rustic background (and the May Robson role)* to make room for the musical numbers. All the same, the original screenplay doesn't have the sharpness, the wit, the incisiveness of the 1954 version and seems much tamer (and even duller) today than it was in 1937. The fault is compounded by Wellman's direction which is fairly straightforward and lacks the style Cukor brought to the later picture. Appealing color photography and great production values compensate.* Oddly enough, Selznick himself wanted to eliminate these scenes but was talked out of it by writer John Lee Mahin.

It struck me that the focus was a bit off in this movie - a focus established by the title, which seems to put the spotlight on Esther. Janet Gaynor was excellent in the part of Esther in what was basically a very good movie - but nothing (not even the title) should have implied that Esther was the focus of the movie. Esther as a character just really didn't make that much of a connection with me. I didn't care all that much about her.Esther was a naive and innocent country girl - dazzled by the movies; attending the "moving pictures" in town, and reading all the gossip magazines. She harbours a dream to go to Hollywood and become a star herself. Her family is either amused by her dream, or they're disdainful of it and even antagonistic toward it - except for her grandmother, who finally gives her the cash to travel to California. Once there, Esther doesn't have much luck finding acting jobs, and money is hard to come by. But one day, working as a waitress at a big Hollywood party, she meets movie star Harold Maine (Fredric March), who is smitten with her and arranges for her to star opposite him in his next movie. Renamed Vicki Lester, Esther becomes a huge star. It's a success story, a story of following your dreams. And that's fine - except that the focus of this really needed to be on Harold.First, March was absolutely superb in the part. But more than that, Harold was simply the more interesting character. His career was on the downswing by the time he met Esther. Parts were getting harder for him to find, the reviews were getting worse and he was starting to drink heavily. I was sympathetic to him, as I watched his entire life crumble around him. I was embarrassed for him as I watched him stumble from one drunken public escapade to another. He loved Esther, but even then he found himself overshadowed by her, to the point at which he was barely recognized, and referred to as "Mr. Lester." March's concluding scene (after he's heard Esther say that she's going to give up her career to help him) is powerful. There's a marvellous message sent by director William Wellman as, during that final scene, he has Harold staring out the window at the sun setting over the ocean, and you know what's coming: an act of self-sacrifice, so that Esther won't have to give up her career to care for him. March's performance and the character himself is powerful; at times riveting.There's also a lot of reflection on the idea of "stars" - the publicity machine that makes them but just as easily spits them out; there's an early look at a sort of paparazzi frenzy around Harold; there's the adoring fans who pester Esther for an autograph - while she's leaving the church after Harold's funeral!It's a very well done movie. I just thought that it was a mistake to have the title focus on Esther, when the power of the movie was Harold's fall and ultimate demise. (9/10)

This said though, the 1954 Judy Garland film is still a fine film with timeless songs and Garland's best ever performance. Both are streets ahead of the 1976 Barbra Streisand version where the only outstanding things are three of her songs and her singing, the rest is an example of a film with a couple of other small pluses and too many big minuses. This version from 1937 is wonderful, it is too short and it is a case of the second half is better than the first half(though this is more an even better rather than a significantly better) but there's still plenty to love. The early strip Technicolor is ravishing, and the film looks just as lavish as the 1954 film with a real Hollywood behind-the-scenes feel. It's beautifully scored too, you don't have those truly great songs from the 1954 which is a pity in a way but when everything is done as well as it is you don't miss them either. The screenplay has since become classic status, and with dialogue that is vibrant, witty, heart-breaking and caustic along with one of the greatest ever last lines it is very easy to see why. It is the story mainly where this scores a little over 1954(very close together these two are), the pacing is more fluid, the storytelling is perhaps more sensitive and I found myself moved more, the ending is genuinely poignant. The drama is hugely compelling in the second half, aided by William A Wellman's intelligent direction, the first half is not quite so much but unlike the 1976 film hardly is it a slog either. The performances are top-notch, Adolphe Menjou and Lionel Stander coming off the best in supporting roles, of the three films it's this version with the most well-fleshed-out characters in my opinion. Janet Gaynor is eclipsed by Judy Garland, but does wonderfully in her own way, her character is the kind that goes on a journey(literally and in character) and Gaynor captures that youthful naivety developing into maturity very well. Best of all is Fredric March in one of his finest performances, a more meaty role than Gaynor's but one done with great theatrical command and touching nuance. One of the best things about this film absolutely. The two do have good chemistry and you do at least believe what the two characters individually and together are going through, it's done a little better in the 1954 film but you don't get any of this at all in the one from 1976. To conclude, poignant, lavish, beautifully performed and superbly written, a great film and the best version. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Fredric March is one of my very favorite actors, and almost all of his movies are quality merchandise. I've not seen them all, but of all that I have seen, they all rate high in my book. This version of "A Star Is Born" is very special...it was made just a decade after pictures converted to sound. If we put the action 'right in the moment', one wonders how Norman Maine could have been washed up in less than a decade...especially if he passed all the rigorous criteria to make it into the talkie era. But we must suspend common sense for a time, in order to get into the movie. His star is fading even as we are introduced to him. Wine, women, song, and the theatre of the bombastic have all taken their toll on Norman. Everybody is back-biting him as being washed up in the business...and all seem to know it ...except Norman, that is. Meeting aspiring starlet from the Midwest, Esther Blodgett, is a bit of serendipity for both of them...though with different outcomes. He arranges a screen test, even twists the producer's arm to star her in a vehicle, which is a success. As her star rises, his continues to fade and fade until he is practically dead in the business. If he had problems when he was still a star, you can imagine what horrors he must have endured as his career is eclipsed by that of his wife, now known as Vicki Lester, who has begun to appear in her own highly acclaimed movies...even winning a coveted Academy Award (which Gaynor did in fact win some years earlier...the first actress to be awarded in her category). Humiliation is piled upon humiliation for Norman. Vicki loves him so much that she decides to put the brakes on her own career to take care of him. Norman now sees that he has lost all that he had, but cannot endure this selfless sacrifice his wife is making. If you have not already seen the movie ( are there aliens living amongst us?) or one of its several derivatives, I will stop there, and let you see the movie for yourself. The performances are sensitive, and this was probably one of Hollywood's first efforts to look at itself with some measure of honesty. The viewer connects with Esther Blodgett and her aspirations, and they want her to win. Fredric March draws out the true tragedian that Norman Maine represents, and his performance shows how pitiful one can become when one's life is shattered and dreams and ambitions disappear like snowdrifts in the springtime. Kudos go to Adolphe Menjou as producer Oliver Niles, Lionel Stander as the no-nonsense PR man ( what a contradiction in terms), who has no sympathy for Norman and contributes to Maine's ultimate decline...and to May Robson. May we all have a Granny like her to come to the rescue in our darkest hour. This version of a "Star Is Born" is best because it is the most dramatic and most honest of the numerous versions. It is raw and gritty, yet it never loses its focus or sensitivity. See the other versions of the movie if you feel you must, but do make an effort to see this one first.