A
STAR
IS
BORN
Directed by:
George Cukor - Written by: Moss Hart, Dorothy Parker
Starring: Judy Garland, James Mason, Jack Carson, Charles
Bickford
Tommy Noonan, Lucy Marlow, Amanda Blake
Released: I954
A
Star is Born, version 1954,
should perhaps be retitled A Star is Rehabilitated, because
it's Star (Judy Garland) was seeking a new beginning. The
film has also been rehabilitated as much as possible to
it's release condition. That quadrant of LA from US10 north
and US5 west, is seen again as it was in the glam 50's,
when the Ambassador was swinging and the Brown Derby was
hoppin' and a parking spot was still available at the
beach. You could cruise from Hollywood to the ocean on
Sunset Boulevard ; it was really paradise for the film
colony. They had their own hotels and restaurants and
nightspots. They didn't and still don't venture out of that
area of LA. The rest of LA might as well be in the midwest.
A
Star is Born, originally
the real story of John Gilbert and Greta Garbo back in the
early 1930s, has been made three times . It was too good a
story to pass up. Young unknown female starlet hooks up
with older established male superstar. As her career rises,
his slides, in inverse ratio, until as she picks up her
shiny Oscar at the Academy Awards, he wades into the surf.
In the two versions we've screened, she's a naif and he's a
king jerk with all the trimmings. She's somehow not at all
effected by the fame and adulation of stardom, while he
evinces every horrible story you've ever heard about bad
star behavior.
Since
it is Judy Garland playing the demure ingenue, it's hard
going as she minces and excuses herself across the screen.
Having been plucked from obscurity early in life to
super-stardom by MGM and fed lots of amphetamines to keep
the money machine going, she later became at times closer
to Norma Desmond in
Sunset Boulevard. Like most
vehicles built around a fading star, this film is like
watching slow death.
As
to the egotistical male half of the duo, Norman Main (James
Mason) not much word about his real life, although if he
was a saint in real life it would be perfect symmetry. But
it's a long freight-train of a movie, made even longer by
the oodles of songs Judy belts out in an MGM raz-mataz
style already passe in I954. This picture is said to have
been planned as a career comeback for Judy by then hubby
Sid Luft and herself. Problem is that her body needed a
workout in the gym, but she showed it off anyway. She
learned the old lesson about the public not wanting to see
child actors grow-up. The film, despite the top writers,
actors and production values, never grossed back the cost
of making it. But Judy has a very loyal fan base even
today, and she was a great singing talent.
The
film does suffice to show off LA at it's best in the early
I950s, and if you're saying, "So what" - well, many of
those places no longer exist; anyway most of the exterior
scenes were cut from the film during studio butchering. As
in any huge city, LA is a case study of what happens when
all the world wants to come and get the good life - and
they all drive; in the film Mason drives a Packard
convertible.
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