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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The lost weekend 1945 - Realistic look at the problem of alcoholism

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IMDB rating: 8,1

Director: Billy Wilder
Main Cast: Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, Phillip Terry, Howard Da Silva, Doris Dowling, Frank Faylen

"Billy Wilder's searing portrait of an alcoholic features an Oscar-winning performance by Ray Milland as Don Birnam, a writer whose lust for booze consumes his career, his life, and his loves. Years before addiction became common currency in the movies (or in American life), Milland etched an indelible portrait of an alcoholic in denial, willing to lie to friends and family, steal from strangers, and give up his livelihood for a drink; Milland's pained and weary desperation as he searches for a pawnshop or the abject terror of his bout with DTs still ring horribly true. The Lost Weekend also manages the clever (and wholly appropriate) feat of making Milland's Don Birnam sympathetic without asking the audience to feel sorry for him or to ignore the deadly foolishness of his actions. Director Billy Wilder (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Charles M. Brackett) makes clear that Don is intelligent and not without talent; he's also weak-willed and a willing slave to the bottle, and while he knows what drink is doing to him, he's unable to stop himself until a final collapse grinds him to a halt. The Lost Weekend is also punctuated by bitter humor (Frank Faylen as the Bellevue alcoholic ward attendant is as funny as he is devoid of compassion) and a superb supporting cast, especially Howard Da Silva as Nat the bartender and Doris Dowling as the bar girl with a softer heart than we'd imagine; and Wilder seems to relish the unstated irony that the drug that's destroying Don Birnam is openly available and used readily by others all around him." - 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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