A Star Is Born (1954).

Review #974: A Star Is Born.

Cast: 
Judy Garland (Esther Blodgett / Vicki Lester), James Mason (Norman Maine), Jack Carson (Matt Libby), Charles Bickford (Oliver Niles), Tommy Noonan (Danny McGuire), Amanda Blake (Susan Etting), Lucy Marlow (Lola Lavery), Irving Bacon (Graves), and Hazel Shermet (Libby's Secretary) Directed by George Cukor (#479 - Travels with My Aunt)

Review: 
It's interesting that George Cukor (who had made What Price Hollywood?) decided to direct the remake of A Star Is Born, which had been made seventeen years earlier and was featured just one review ago on this show. There are quite a few differences between the two versions, namely the decision to make it a musical along with the omission of the grandmother character, turning Esther from a farm-girl wanting to be an actor into an aspiring singer in a band, changing Danny from assistant director to a bandleader along with a few other things. If this had been handled in the wrong hands, it might've felt unnecessary, but the film has the right tools to succeed. This is a finely constructed piece of entertainment, with the biggest highlight being Garland and her performance on screen. There is just something magnetic about her presence that is easily watchable along with easy to care for throughout the movie. She handles both singing and acting as well as one would expect, where neither overshadow each other. Notably, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance; though she was pregnant and could not attend the ceremony, a camera crew was set up at the hospital room in case she won, but she lost to Grace Kelly for her performance in The Country Girl (1954). Mason captures the downward spiral of the character he's playing about as well as you'd expect, doing so with a fine amount of spirit. Carson does a fine job with his character as well, capturing the smarmy nature that Lionel Stander had done in the original film and improving on it. The rest of the cast is fine as well. It's not every day that I watch a film with an intermission, nor one that has a song as memorable as "Born in a Trunk" to get to that point, and it is a fine song in a film with a bunch of entertaining and show-stopping songs, and the music score by Ray Heindorf is also a useful standout.

The film's length was shortened from its premiere version of 182 minutes to 154 for general release in order to erase fears of having less number of daily showings. It was the efforts of Ronald Haver and his research into the Warner Bros archives that led to the finding of most of the missing footage. For the parts that were not found, production stills and accompanying dialogue was used, with that particular version lasting 176 minutes. In any case, this is a fine classic that manages to be a grand showcase for Garland while being a great piece of entertainment. This is a remake that manages to make the material seem fresh and useful without trampling over the original, being a fine-tuned improvement.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.