A star is born 1954 - Judy's triumph from beginning to end

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IMDB Rating: 7,8

Director: George Cukor
Main Cast: Judy Garland, James Mason, Jack Carson, Charles Bickford, Tommy Noonan, Amanda Blake

"The 1954 musical remake of A Star is Born could have been titled A Star is Reborn, in that it represented the triumphal return to the screen of Judy Garland after a four-year absence. The remake adheres closely to the plotline of the 1937 original: An alcoholic film star, on his last professional legs, gives a career boost to a unknown aspiring actress. The two marry, whereupon her fame and fortune rises while his spirals sharply downward. Unable to accept this, the male star crawls deeper into the bottle. The wife tearfully decides to give up her own career to care for her husband. To spare her this fate, the husband chivalrously commits suicide. His wife is inconsolable at first, but is urged to go 'on with the show' in memory of her late husband.
To make room for the songs, several supporting characters from the 1937 version were eliminated. The result is a film that, despite the increased length, has less story-telling richness, though the deficiency is compensated by Garland's superb performance.
What truly sets the 1954 A Star is Born apart from other films of its ilk is its magnificent musical score by Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin. The songs include The Man Who Got Away (brilliantly performed by Garland in one long take, sans dubbing), It's a New World, Somewhere There's a Someone, I Was Born in a Trunk, Lose That Long Face and Gotta Have Me Go With You. When originally previewed in 1954, the film ran well over three hours, thanks to the lengthy-and thoroughly disposable-Born in a Trunk number, added to the film as an afterthought without the approval or participation of director George Cukor. The Warner Bros. executives trimmed the film to 154 minutes, eliminating three top-rank musical numbers and several crucial expository sequences (including Norman's proposal to Vicki). At the instigation of the late film historian Ronald Haver, the full version was painstakingly restored in 1983, with outtakes and still photos bridging the 'lost' footage. Despite the efforts of restoration experts, there are today no complete prints of the original release version. Judy Garland benefits from the increased emphasis on her character, and the film is far more of a star vehicle for her than was the original for Janet Gaynor. Though nominated in several categories, A Star is Born was left empty-handed at Academy Award time, an oversight that caused outrage then and still rankles Judy Garland fans to this day. (Hedda Hopper later reported that her loss to Grace Kelly for The Country Girl (1954) was the result of the closest Oscar vote up till that time that didn't end in a tie, with just six votes separating the two.)" - www.allmovie.com

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What price Hollywood? 1932 - The familiar 'A Star Is Born' story with Cukor in the director's chair

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IMDB rating: 7,8

Director: George Cukor
Main Cast: Constance Bennett, Lowell Sherman, Neil Hamilton, Gregory Ratoff

"What Price Hollywood is often referred to as the 'first' version of the oft-filmed A Star is Born. While there are strong resemblances between the two properties, Hollywood is in many respects a wholly separate entity.
Constance Bennett plays a star-struck waitress who manages to make a good impression on prominent film director Lowell Sherman. With Sherman's patronage, Bennett rises to film stardom as 'America's Pal'. Sherman is gratified, but he keeps his distance; a chronic alcoholic, he is certain that his inevitable fall from grace will adversely affect Bennett's stardom. Impulsively, Bennett marries wealthy playboy Neil Hamilton, who genuinely loves his wife but is jealous of the demands made on her by her career. Hamilton walks out, but not before Bennett has been impregnated. Turning her attentions to her mentor Sherman, Bennett does everything she can to halt his career downslide, but it is too late. In a startlingly conceived sequence (utilizing slow motion and rapid-fire montage cutting), Sherman kills himself in Bennett's bedroom. When his body is found, the ensuing scandal destroys Bennett's career (represented visually by a life-sized cutout of 'America's Pal' shrinking into nothingness). Hoping to heal her emotional wounds, she flees to Paris with her child, where she is reunited with a contrite Hamilton.
What Price Hollywood? producer David O. Selznick later claimed that most of the dialogue and situations in the film were drawn from life; he'd make the same claim upon producing the similar (but not identical) A Star is Born five years later. Somewhat perversely, Lowell Sherman based his performance-especially the inebriation scenes-on his then brother-in-law John Barrymore." - www.allmovie.com

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A star is born 1937 - Is the price of stardom a broken heart?

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029606/
IMDB rating: 7,7

Directors: Jack Conway, William A. Wellman
Main Cast: Janet Gaynor, Fredric March, Adolphe Menjou, May Robson, Andy Devine, Owen Moore, Peggy Wood

"A Star is born came into being when producer David O. Selznick decided to tell a 'true behind-the-scenes' story of Hollywood. The truth, of course, was filtered a bit for box-office purposes, although Selznick and an army of screenwriters based much of their script on actual people and events. (Especially the marriage of Barbara Stanwyck and Frank Fay. The latter was a huge Broadway star who just started to wash up and his young wife's career in Hollywood began to take off. The writers were at great pains to insist at the beginning of the movie that 'all resemblance to any person is purely coincidental...' and all of that. But everyone in Hollywood knew at the time.) A star is born showcased Janet Gaynor's last great performance and established one of the screen's most enduring tales of tragic love. A triumph of top-grade production values, writing, and acting, it represented the zenith of efforts from United Artists in the late 1930s, and remains entertaining and relevant when viewed by current-day audiences. This is one of the best films of the 1930s, particularly notable for the acting and the high level of technical work, as director William Wellman adroitly combines a rich visual style with the luminous performances of the film's stars. An honorary Oscar selected by a panel of cinematographers went to Howard Greene's Technicolor work, helping to change Academy rules two years later to recognize color cinematography as a separate category from Black & White. The film received seven Oscar nominations overall, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress for Gaynor, and Best Actor for Fredric March, winning for Wellman and co-scripter Robert Carson as Best Original Story." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/a-star-is-born-v46638/

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