A Star Is Born

Plot synopsis:
Esther Hoffman, an aspiring singer-songwriter, meets John Norman Howard, a famous, successful and self-destructive singer/songwriter rock star, whom, after a series of coincidental meetings, she finally starts dating. Believing in her talent, John gives her a helping hand and her career begins to eclipse his.
Writer and director Frank Pierson, in his New West magazine article "My Battles With Barbra and Jon" summarized it thusly:
"An actress is a little more than a woman, an actor a little less than a man (Oscar Wilde) ... The woman in our story is ambitious to become a star, but it is not necessary: it can make her happier and richer, but she could give it all away and not be a better or worse person. With stardom she is only a little more than a woman. For the man, his career is his defense against a self-destructive part of himself that has led him into outrageous bursts of drunkenness, drugs, love affairs, fights and adventures that have made him a legend. His career is also what gives him his sense of who he is. Without it, he is lost and confused; his demons eat him alive. That's why he is a little less than a man. And it is not that her success galls him, or that she wins over him; the tragedy is that all her love is not enough to keep alive a man who has lost what he measures his manhood with; his career."
And so the conclusion is measured by the theme. He takes his life in the mistaken belief that he will then not drag her down with him.

Tags: tragedy, satire, melodrama

Review:
Fredric March brings all of it on the screen, providing one of his best performances here.If you would like to become an actor, I believe you should watch this movie and Mr. March's way of acting.
I had not watched this movie until today, passing up each opportunity over the years to view it, as I feared it would not live up to the 1954 blockbuster starring Judy Garland and James Mason.I was right, it does not; it far surpasses the 1954 remake.
Janet Gaynor is perfect as the home-grown farm girl seeking to make her mark in Hollywood, and Fredric March is very convincing as the has-been who cannot cope with his declining value in Hollywood, especially since he caused much of it himself.I had thought that I might miss the music in this earlier version, but I found after having watched it that I didn't miss it at all.
Janet Gaynor plays Esther Blodgett beautifully, a girl who leaves for Hollywood with dreams of film magazines and the blessing of her granny.
March is excellent in this, and the look of the film is surprisingly modern with its lovely technicolor and gadgets (I particularly like the shower in the motor home Esther and Norman take on honeymoon).
Fredric March gave a magnificent performance, probably the best of his career, as Norman Maine, the actor whose career is in the descendant as that of his wife, Vikki Lester, is in the ascendant in this, the first 'official' version of "A Star is Born", (the 1932 film "What Price Hollywood" roughly told the same story).
If Lester is a star and possibly a great actress Gaynor keeps the secret to herself.The script for this version was partly written by Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell and it shows.
Beware, however: a 2012 version is now in pre-production; although, as we all know, it may never be completed – Hollywood being what it is.Of course, this story – rags to riches in the acting business - was done first by others – principally Katherine Hepburn in Morning Glory (1933) and, oddly enough, again in Stage Door (1937), and again with Katherine Hepburn ably assisted by a host of well-known Hollywood actors, including the tireless Adolphe Menjou who never seemed to mind playing a Hollywood boss, in this and many other similar movies.
And, failure was not an option.Today's mainstream audience, on the other hand, would probably laugh at the perceived and implied naivety of the 1930s crowd.The acting – from Frederic March as Norman Maine (the main actor in the story – such an appropriate name!) who is already on the slippery slopes to alcoholic and acting oblivion just as he meets and falls in love with Janet Gaynor as Esther Blodgett as the aspiring Hollywood wannabee; and both ably assisted by Adolphe Menjou as Hollywood producer, Oliver Niles – raises it to the level of simplistic melodrama and without descending into bathos, fortunately.
But fate is on her side in the person of leading man Norman Maine, played by Fredric March in one of his best screen performances.Though Gaynor and March were both nominated for Gaynor the part of Esther Blodgett/Vicki Lester was no stretch for her.
March and Gaynor get good support from Adolphe Menjou as an understanding producer, Andy Devine as Gaynor's fellow boarder at her place of residence and most of all from Lionel Stander as the cynical press agent who inadvertently puts the finish to March's career.Gaynor's final moment on the screen is one of the great classic events as she proclaims to the world she's Mrs. Norman Maine.
The basic idea is fairly simple, but filled with potential, and it is done skillfully.Janet Gaynor and Frederic March work very well as a Hollywood couple whose careers are headed in different directions, with March's performance being especially good.
Hollywood of those years was a factory of dreams where many went to be part of it, but for one Esther Blodgett, there were thousands who were rejected.We watch as Esther is transformed into Vicki Lester, a star larger than life, who captures the public's imagination and goes to eclipse bigger stars such as Norman Maine, her discoverer, and the man she falls in love with.
this is the first version of this movie made,and the only version i have seen so far.i liked it.i thought it was touching and ironic,and also tragic.it basically tells what the movie business can do to you,and the sacrifices that are made.it also shows how disposable the industry and the people in it are.as long as you are the flavour of the week,everything seems fine.but when you're no longer useful,reality hits and things can come crashing down.that's what basically happens in this story.it's an indictment(ironically)of the movie industry,however subtle.regardless,i thought it was well done.the acting by the tow leads,Janet Gaynor,and Frederic March,as well as the supporting performances,are terrific.i also thought the writing was very good,and the movie flows very well.for me,A Star is Born gets an 8/10.
Sorry, but I can't get on the bandwagon here of glowing adjectives to describe A STAR IS BORN with mousy Janet Gaynor in the Esther Blodgett role--a girl swept into big time stardom by a man whose own career is on the descent.FREDRIC MARCH plays the alcoholic Norman Maine (modeled after someone like John Barrymore) who meets Gaynor at a party, is presumably dazzled by her enough to get her a screen test, and that's how the career of Esther Blodgett starts.
The interior scenes in the first half are darkly lit and look like primitive use of color.The touching ending is well handled, but I can't believe Janet Gaynor in the role of a girl whose talent is so arresting that she immediately is scooped up into the frenzy of film-making.
The role should have been played by a girl in her early twenties who looks the part and has the out-sized talent needed to convince us she could be molded into a star of Vicki Lester proportions.Summing up: Disappointing, especially when compared to the Garland/Mason version, but worthwhile for Fredric March's performance as Norman Maine..
However, she gets nowhere until she's noticed by famous movie star Norman Maine (Fredric March), a performer on his way down in terms of popular appeal.
The two fall in love but just as Ester's star, under the stage name Vicki Lester begins to rise, Maine's begins to fade.The best thing about this film is the performance given by Fredric March as actor Norman Maine.
It's Maine's character that proves most interesting to the viewer here as March completely steals the film away from star Janet Gaynor.Gaynor doesn't prove quite as appealing or convincing in her lead role as Ester Blodgett/Vicki Lester and honestly it's hard to see why the public should favor her so.
Esther Blodgett (Janet Gaynor) wants to be a star.She goes to Hollywood to find her way into the pictures.There she meets the big star Norman Maine (Fredric March) and soon the big Hollywood romance is blooming.Esther finds herself in the same movie with her sweetheart and soon there will be more.Her Hollywood name is Vicki Lester.Norman Maine is a troubled star.He drinks too much but she makes him stop.But fighting against alcohol is much harder when he finds his wife a bigger star than he is.William A.
Wellman's A Star Is Born (1937) is perfect drama.It touches you the way it should.You really feel for Norman Maine when he loses what he once had.Fredric March does a brilliant job portraying him.The true star Janet Gaynor is wonderful in the role of Mrs.Norman Maine.Adolphe Menjou gives a great performance as Oliver Niles.Andy Devine is in a really sympathetic role as Danny McGuire.May Robson is fantastic as Grandmother Lettie.This movie from 70 years back does very good job showing the downside of fame.A Star Is Born is ageless..
Gaynor certainly keeps them under wraps, and one has to stretch the imagination to imagine that Gaynor, as capable an actress as she was, could possibly out act the great March.Nice supporting work from Adolphe Menjou as a Hollywood producer, and Lionel Stander is just poisonous as the vile Libby, who, while justifiably fed up with March and his chronic drinking and star tantrums, has not a sympathetic bone in his body.
Janet Gaynor, though a very big star in the 1930s, hasn't attained a large latter-day following for (most likely) the very reason she became an attraction initially: her giving, unselfish nature makes her a prime victim for love's heartaches, and one longs for her Esther Blodgett/Vicki Lester to mature on-screen.
March (whose looks and voice is startlingly reminiscent of Gene Kelly here) comes off much better as the dipsomaniac star who has seen better days, although James Mason gave a far more trenchant and terrifying portrait of self-destruction in the Garland remake.Adolphe Menjou who created the Charles Bickford studio executive part and, especially, Lionel Stander as the publicity agent later played by Jack Carson, shine in their subordinate but finely tuned roles, helping to counter-balance the banal tendencies of the script, while May Robson's spiky but wise, benevolent granny, Clara (Auntie Em) Blandick's acidulous aunt, Elizabeth Jenns' actress paramour, Andy Devine's true-blue friend, and Edgar Kennedy's pop get caught up soundly in the film's cliches.Hollywood 'realism' has never been more obvious or watered down than here, yet the film still manages to give off a quaint charm and appeal that makes it bearable today.
A country girl (Janet Gaynor) goes to Hollywood to become a star but hits hard times until she meets the famous Norman Maine (Fredric March).
A rising young Hollywood actress marries a washed-up alcoholic star in the original version of the story that was remade twice.
Janet Gaynor, a star who was born a decade ago during the silent film era, and being the first actress to win an Academy Award (1928-29), is appropriately cast in her best screen role in a sound film in what might have been Gaynor, "a star reborn," this time in glorious Technicolor.Opening with the final shooting script with description of Scene One, fade-in to farmhouse in Fillmore, South Dakota, the plot gets immediately underway with Esther Blodgett (Janet Gaynor), an avid movie fan, returning home from the theater with her little brother Alex (A.W. Sweatt).
After an introduction with co-director Danny McGuire (Andy Devine), who lands her a job as a waitress at a Hollywood party, Esther meets Norman Maine (Fredric March), her favorite movie idol who becomes attracted to her, so much by her beauty that whenever she exits, he asks, "Do you mind if I have just ...
one more look?"  Norman talks producer Oliver Niles (Adolphe Menjou) into giving Esther a screen test, followed by a motion picture debut under a new professional name of Vicki Lester, cast opposite Norman in "The Enchanted Hour." After Vicki and Norman marry, Vicki's career reaches great heights, to a point of being voted best actress at the eighth annual Academy Awards, while Norman's popularity declines to the point of being terminated from his studio and turning to alcoholism that puts a tremendous strain on their marriage.With Janet Gaynor in a well deserved Academy Award nominated performance that might have paved the way for stronger performances, she's retired from the screen by 1938.
Other performers worth noting include Lionel Stander as Matt Libby, the gravel voice press agent; Elizabeth Jeans as Norman Maine's domineering escort; Jed Prouty as columnist for "Cinema Sidelights," Franklin Pangborn and Guinn Williams in smaller roles.Aside from the fact that things happen so fast in A STAR IS BORN, the story gives the impression as being set solely in 1937 rather than a five or ten year span considering that much of the sets, womens fashions and hair styles appear to be the same throughout.
The only notable change is Gaynor, whose character changes from young hopeful to a maturing movie star.The popularity of A STAR IS BORN did lead to musical remakes from Warner Brothers: 1954, with Judy Garland and James Mason; and in 1976 with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson.
Where it all began - the 1937, original, A STAR IS BORN, starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March (Asolphe Menjou, May Robson, Andy Devine, Lionel Sander - all familiar faces on celluloid in that era of film).
I really liked it and was struck by how much the Judy Garland and James Mason film copied the storyline of its predecessor.Filmed in low-key but still warm technicolour, it moves quickly from Gaynor's lowly farmhouse background as a rather mousy-looking country girl, obsessed with movies and matinee idol Norman Maine in particular but with a dream of her own to make it to Hollywood as an actress.
Just occasionally perhaps March is allowed too much solo screen-time and I also didn't think his offensive, self-destructive streak was put over forcefully enough, certainly insufficiently to justify Lionel Stander's long-suffering P.R. man laying him out just when he's recuperating after a spell in a sanatorium, but there are several classic scenes, like when Maine drunkenly arrives at Vicki's Oscar ceremony presentation, Maine's sacrificial walk into the sea and of course one of the great finishing lines to any movie ever.Caustically written, one suspects by an insider, stylishly directed by William Wellman and with fine support playing by Stander and Adolph Menjou in particular, this is Golden Age Hollywood story-telling at its best..
The colors are muddy and murky, and the lighting choices are odd -- some scenes are so darkly lit it's literally difficult to see the actors, like a film noir in color."A Star Is Born" won the Academy Award for Best Original Story, which was written by Wellman and Robert Carson.
This is the first version of the memorable Hollywood tale of young hopeful (Gaynor) trying to make it big as an actress, marries the fading actor (March) that helped her, and eventually encounters the dark side of stardom.
In essence, a washed up star falls in love with his protégé, and her career skyrockets.Fredric March played the original Norman Maine, and while he did give a very good performance, it's a character he frequently played in the 1930s, so if you don't feel like renting this one, you can check out Merrily We Go To Hell or My Sin instead.
It seems you can't help making comparisons...well, I must admit that before seeing "A star is born"1937 version I was sure nothing could surpass the intensity that Judy Garland brought to the role of Vicky Lester in the fine Cukor version; I was wrong ,I was moved beyond words by this picture which is at the same time one of the most cruel and adult movie ever made on Hollywood and a poignant, heartbreaking love story.
I admired so much the superior dialogue and, most of all,the brilliance of the whole cast-.Janet Gaynor, though maybe not the ideal choice for the role of Vicky Lester, gives a sincere, sensitive performance but what really makes this picture outstanding is Fredric March's superb portrayal of Norman Maine.He really makes Norman came alive as a real human being, weak, charming, self disruptive but generous and capable of love.
While serving at a party, drunken acting star Norman Maine (Fredric March) helps her get a screen test.
Dorothy Parker had a major hand in the screenplay, and in this movie about Hollywood artifice and the illusion of cinema, intelligent use is made of an actual script at the beginning and end, showing dialogue and screen directions.Janet Gaynor is very appealing as Esther Blodgett, the naive North Dakota country girl who makes it as Vicki Lester, megastar.
One of the all-time greats, A Star Is Born (1937) is a classic Hollywood story of power and love and the fickleness of fame.
Janet Gaynor has her great talkie role and Fredric March has one of his best as the star-cross lovers, Esther Blodgett and Norman Maine.
In this version, Fredric March's Maine makes Janet Gaynor's Blodgett a star because he wants to get her into the sack.
Subsequently, he dates her and then gets her a screen test and a co-starring role in his next movie although he's never seen her perform.This narrative is depressing because she became a star as a result of Maine objectifying her, and a plain-looking woman with talent would have failed.In a good story, the writers would have shown us that Blodgett was a great actress.
What superb acting by Frederic March as Norman Maine, Janet Gaynor as Vicki Lester/Esther Blodgett, and all of the rest of this excellent cast.
But, in this original, we see first, a story of a young small-town girl, Esther/Vicki, who dreams of becoming a movie star.
Norman gets his long-time producer and good friend, Oliver Niles (Adolphe Menjou), to give Esther a screen test, Oliver is impressed, gives her a new movie star name, "Vicki Lester", and gives her a contract.
While Janet Gaynor and Frederick March are good in the leads, the ensemble is weak in its old-style, ham acting.The film attempts to chronicle the rise of a young actress in opposition to the decline of the actor who has assisted her on her ascent to becoming a Hollywood star.
But in the Gaynor-March version, once the young actress Vicki Lester has become a star, the momentum of the film is lost.
Hollywood can present much beauty, but for those inside the business, it is a living hell.Esther Blodgett (Janet Gaynor) is a young hopeful from hundreds of miles from Hollywood who longs to come to "Tinseltown" and work with the legends like the fictional Norman Maine (Fredric March), an Oscar Winner slowly falling down the ranks thanks to bad publicity, bad films, and especially, way too much booze.
Perhaps, it's because of the crackling of the film, but the 1937 version of "A Star is Born," doesn't hold a candle to the musical version of 17 years later.Janet Gaynor, as Esther/Vickie, doesn't hold a candle to Judy Garland's interpretation of the same role.