A Star Is Born (1937) [1080p]
Channel: The Cinema Cellar
Date: 2023-08-10

'A Star Is Born is a 1937 American Technicolor drama film produced by David O. Selznick, directed by William A. Wellman from a script by Wellman, Robert Carson, Dorothy Parker, and Alan Campbell, and starring Janet Gaynor (in her only Technicolor film) as an aspiring Hollywood actress, and Fredric March (in his Technicolor debut) as a fading movie star who helps launch her career. The supporting cast features Adolphe Menjou, May Robson, Andy Devine, Lionel Stander, and Owen Moore.

The film has been remade three times: in 1954 (directed by George Cukor and starring Judy Garland and James Mason), in 1976 (directed by Frank Pierson and starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson), and in 2018 (starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, who also directed).

Cast
    Janet Gaynor as Esther Blodgett/Vicki Lester
    Fredric March as Norman Maine
    Adolphe Menjou as Oliver Niles
    May Robson as Grandmother Lettie Blodgett
    Andy Devine as Daniel "Danny" McGuire
    Lionel Stander as Matt Libby
    Owen Moore as Casey Burke
    Peggy Wood as Miss Phillips
    Elizabeth Jenns as Anita Regis
    Edgar Kennedy as Pop Randall
    J. C. Nugent as Mr. Blodgett
    Guinn "Big Boy" Williams as posture coach
    Clara Blandick as Aunt Mattie (uncredited)

Production

A Star Is Born was filmed from October to December 1936 with an estimated budget of $1,173,639, and premiered in Los Angeles on April 20, 1937, at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. The film's New York premiere took place two days later at Radio City Music Hall.

It is not known how much Dorothy Parker contributed to the finished script. When she first saw the film, Parker was proud of her contribution and boasted about both the script and the film, but in later life she believed that she had contributed nothing of significance. Early in their careers, Budd Schulberg (then a script reader for David O. Selznick) and Ring Lardner, Jr. (who was working in Selznick's publicity department) were assigned to write some additional dialogue for the film, a collaboration which produced Janet Gaynor's (and the film's) final words: "This is Mrs. Norman Maine." The line was used again in the 1954 remake starring Judy Garland and James Mason. George Cukor, who directed the remake, suggested adding the scene in the 1937 film in which Menjou offers the fading star a supporting role.

Janet Gaynor was given the first Oscar for Best Actress at the first Academy Awards ceremony on May 16, 1929. In the scene in which Vicky Lester wins an Oscar, it is Janet Gaynor's own Oscar she is holding. In a subsequent scene, the same Oscar is seen sitting on a shelf. Fredric March had won the Oscar for Best Actor (1931/32) on November 18, 1932, for the film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (he tied with Wallace Beery for The Champ (1931 film)). Although Norman Maine states that he won an award statue, and the name "Oscar" never is mentioned on screen, it is, presumably, an Oscar. Unlike Janet Gaynor, however, Fredric March's Oscar is never seen.

Background

Some film historians believe that the marriage of Barbara Stanwyck and Frank Fay was the film's real-life inspiration. John Bowers has also been identified as the inspiration for the Norman Maine character and the dramatic suicide-by-drowning scene near the end of the film (Bowers drowned in November 1936). The film contains several inside jokes, including Gaynor's brief imitations of Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn, and Mae West; the "Crawford Smear", referring to Joan Crawford's lipstick; and the revelation that the glamorous Norman Maine's real last name is Hinkle. (Henkel was the real last name of silent film star Agnes Ayres, and not far removed from Fredric March's real last name, Bickel). Charlie Chaplin used the name Hynkel to parody Adolf Hitler three years later in his film The Great Dictator.

This film also has many similarities to the earlier film What Price Hollywood? (1932), released by RKO Radio Pictures. The 1932 film's original title was The Truth About Hollywood based on a story by Adela Rogers St. Johns. St. Johns loosely based her plot on the experiences of actress Colleen Moore and her husband, alcoholic producer John McCormick (1893–1961), and the life and death of director Tom Forman, who committed suicide following a nervous breakdown.

Four years after What Price Hollywood? was released, Selznick approached George Cukor and asked him to direct A Star Is Born. Cukor felt the plot was too similar to What Price Hollywood? so he declined. RKO executives considered filing a plagiarism suit against Selznick International Pictures because of the similarities in the story, but eventually chose not to take legal action. Cukor later directed the 1954 musical remake starring Judy Garland.'

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Star_Is_Born_(1937_film)