Nominated for Best Picture of 1937, A Star Is Born presents what was probably not a "new" story even when it first premiered. It's the tale of an up-and-coming actress who falls in love with a movie star whose career is on the decline. As the film progresses, we see her career take off while his flounders. So popular was the story that it's been remade twice, first in 1954 with Judy Garland and James Mason (perhaps the definitive version) and then in 1976 with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson (not quite so definitive but also not without its own charms).
This version stars Janet Gaynor, who had won the first Academy Award for Best Actress. Almost a decade after that win, she plays the part of the naive farm girl who comes to Hollywood to make it big. Today this role is so stereotypical that the first mention of it would cause a groan to arise from an audience. Perhaps it was fresh then; every cliche must start somewhere. However, I was never quite convinced by Gaynor's performance. She seems so hopelessly naive, perhaps even foolish, when she comes to Hollywood, and it is pretty far into the film before she starts to acknowledge that all is not rosy. Gaynor has a sort of pixie-ish quality to her that I personally don't find all that appealing. She's supposed to be an overnight sensation, a hit with her very first movie, but I couldn't quite see what would make her so attractive to all those moviegoers of the 1930s. Much is made of her being a "nice girl." Was that truly so rare in those days?
The part of Norman Maine is played by Fredric March. March had already received an Oscar for playing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and he would win another one a few years later playing a drunk in The Lost Weekend. He's a drunk here as well, but there are a few moments when you can see that his character was actually charming once. It's difficult, though, for the most part, to see why Esther Blodgett/Vicki Lester (that's Gaynor's character) finds him attractive. Yes, when he temporarily cleans up his act, he is good and loving, even funny at times. But there is certainly a strong consistent pattern to his bad behavior. Norman is not a man to be trusted or even liked, and almost every character in the movie (save for Esther and her grandmother, who never meets him in person and bases her opinion of him upon one letter she received) repeatedly describes him this way.
As usual, it's a supporting player who gets most of my attention. This time around it's Adolph Menjou. Much like Claude Raines at Warner Brothers, Menjou appeared in hundreds of films, and it's always a treat when he shows up. Here he plays the head of the studio that employs Esther and Norman. He gets to demonstrate his comic timing in the first half of the film and his compassion in the second half; it's quite a part, and he makes the most of it. Menjou was a talented actor who was given a wide range of roles throughout his career, and he always seemed to make the most of a part, no matter how small it was.
Andy Devine appears in the film as an assistant director who's also pretty new to Hollywood. Devine would also appear in hundreds of movies, including many, many westerns, throughout his career, but those looks and that voice make you wonder if he was employed merely for the audience to have someone to ridicule. He never gets much to do here; I wondered why there wasn't a potential love story between him and Esther, just to give a bit more dramatic tension to the film. Perhaps he was too "comic" for an audience to take him seriously as a love interest.
As an aside, I must say that the print I watched was incredibly murky. I don't know if it was originally filmed to be so dark or if the print has deteriorated over the years, but there were times when I could barely make out who was on the screen. Perhaps it's meant to be somewhat metaphorical for the dark side of Hollywood, but I didn't detect a pattern to suggest it was a deliberate choice. Oddly enough, the film's cinematographer, W. Howard Greene, received an honorary Oscar for his color photography of this film. It was the second year in a row that he had received such an award.
There's also an intriguing framing device for this film. It begins and ends with the final shooting script for the movie itself. It opens to the page that describes the opening shot in order to start the action, and it closes with the description of Norma's speech: "Hello, everyone. This is Mrs. Norman Maine." I'm wondering if the director, William "Wild Bill" Wellman, wasn't trying to call attention to the artificiality of the entire film by using this method of bracketing the action. It makes us realize that it's all still a Hollywood movie after all, that most artificial of constructions.
I've seen all three versions of A Star Is Born now. I still prefer the 1954 one, and it probably has to do with Garland's performance more than the story itself. You get a greater sense of her awareness of both the good and bad aspects of fame, perhaps something she knew more about than Gaynor did. The 1937 film sets the parameters for each of the remakes, and as such, I admire how easily it can be adapted to fit the story of the rise of a musical film star (1954) and a rock-and-roll singer (1976).
Oscar Win: Original Story
Other Oscar Nominations: Picture, Director, Assistant Director, Actor (March), Actress (Gaynor), and Screenplay
No comments:
Post a Comment