A Star is Born

Few people these days have heard of the 1932 film What Price Hollywood?, a pre-code film that served as the basis for the much more well known A Star is Born. In the earlier film a waitress working at the Brown Derby becomes a star thanks to a chance encounter with an alcoholic director whose star is falling. The film was not a hit and barely broke even at the box office. A scant five years later the same plot was retooled for Janet Gaynor, an actress who rose to prominence during the silent era of the late 1920’s. She became one of the few actors to successfully transition to the sound era and maintained that career until retiring at the ripe old age of 33. 1937’s A Star is Born was a huge success for United Artists and Selznick International Pictures and over the decades it was remade again and again and again, most recently in the 2010’s with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper in the leads. Something about this fairly basic story seemed to resonate with audiences generation after generation; It even served as one of the inspirations for the silent film revival picture The Artist in 2011.

Esther Victoria Blodgett is a young starry-eyed farmer’s daughter who yearns to be an actress, much to the chagrin of her father and aunt. Her grandmother Lettie (May Robson), seeing just how passionate Esther is about this, gives her her savings so she can travel to Hollywood and pursue her dreams. The only stipulation Lettie gives for the money is that no matter how hard things get, no matter how happy, sad, or heartbroken she may get in this pursuit she must not give up on it and make it a reality. Esther promises she will and off to Hollywood she goes. What she finds there is eye-opening to say the least. Everywhere there are people who would do anything to be a star. The studios haven’t accepted new applications for any position, including uncredited extras, in years and those that do get hired are not for acting jobs but work in the offices answering phones or mail. Esther does get a small glimmer of hope though when she befriends a new resident at her boarding house, out of work assistant director Danny McGuire (Andy Devine). When he does find work the two go out to a concert to celebrate and she has her first encounter with movie star Norman Maine (Fredric March), an actor she has greatly admired for years. 

Norman’s career recently has been on the decline in large part due to his alcoholism and increased unreliability. Esther runs into him again while waitressing at a fancy Hollywood party. Impressed with her he secures her a screen test with his lifelong friend and producer Oliver Niles (Adolphe Menjou). She is offered a bit role in a film along with a stage name, Vicki Lester. When the studio cannot find a suitable female lead for the latest Norman Maine film, Norman persuades Oliver to cast Esther/Vicki in the role. The screenings go out and audiences praise Esther’s performance but dismiss Norman’s. The two actors marry but Norman becomes more and more depressed as his star keeps falling while hers is on the rise. 

While later iterations of this familiar plot switch things up by swapping out acting for singing the original A Star is Born, and What Price Hollywood? before it, is firmly in the Hollywood scene. The results are the same, though and what we have is a shift that plays out every year in Hollywood. The cultural zeitgeist and the general public’s taste in actors and musicians is always shifting and some people cannot ride the waves and come out unscathed on the other side. We have seen countless Hollywood marriages fall apart when one half of the couple is excelling while the other is not. Some of the happiest, longest lasting marriages in Hollywood have been where one part of the couple isn’t in the industry at all, eliminating that competition between them. 

Norman’s career was already on the outs when he first meets Esther, as evidenced at the concert she attends with Danny. Norman gets into a drunken brawl, disrupting the patrons and getting his name in the papers for all the wrong reasons. A particularly venomous reporter keeps going after him, antagonizing him over his alcoholism and fall from grace, all but daring Norman to take a swing at him. His treatment of Norman when he’s at his absolute lowest pushes him into a relapse that will end up spiraling downward leaving the downtrodden man with a feeling that he cannot go on dragging his wife down with him.

A Star is Born was nominated for the big five Oscars in 1938 but took home none of those. It did win for the story as well as being given an Honorary Award for the beautiful color photography. It doesn’t seem like the kind of film studios would invest the extra expense in filming in Technicolor and would have played just fine had it been simply in Black and White. The color does help it stand out from amongst its contemporaries though and it was Janet Gaynor’s only color film during her initial career.

Tragedy can be a hard sell in the motion picture industry. Audiences like happy, romantic, endings in general which is why so many poorly written romance novels still sell a lot of copies. It takes a strong screenplay to sell a satisfying tragedy to the mainstream. We have to care for the two leads enough that when tragedy strikes we don’t turn on the film. Three credited writers and two story-by credits went into this film, all of which were Oscar nominated for it. Going into it blindly you may not know what Norman Maine’s final fate will be but when he stands at the picture window overlooking the Pacific Ocean and says to Esther that he wants to take one last look at her the reality of what he is saying sinks in and we know what he means. Having seen several of the remakes I knew where this was leading from the get-go but it was still gut wrenching when I got to this moment. Fredric March sells the despair as he’s slipped off the wagon once again. It’s such a stark contrast to the happier version we saw of him when the two were newlywed and having a silly misadventure on their honeymoon in a broke down camper.

Grandma Lettie steps back into the picture in the last act as Esther is mourning Norman and packing up to leave Hollywood for good. Lettie’s response is pitch perfect, reminding Esther of the promise she made in exchange for the money that got her there in the first place. Her pursuit of fame and stardom led her to some happy times and some sad times. It also broke her heart. Lettie convinces her that she mustn’t run away from her emotions but learn from it, pull herself up, and move on with her chosen life. It’s a hard thing to deal with when a loved one takes their own life. Nothing will ever cure the pain felt when someone we love makes that decision. Esther puts on a brave face and steps out to greet her fans, posing for the photographers on the red carpet and smiling in the face of all the flashing lights that she once craved enough to risk nearly everything to acheive.

Academy Award Nominations: 

Outstanding Production: David O. Selznick

Best Director: William A. Wellman

Best Actor: Fredric March

Best Actress: Janet Gaynor

Best Original Story: William A. Wellman and Robert Carson (won)

Best Adaptation: Alan Campbell, Robert Carson and Dorothy Parker

Best Assistant Director: Eric Stacey

Academy Honorary Award: W. Howard Greene (won)

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Release Date: April 20, 1937

Running Time: 111 Minutes

Not Rated

Starring: Janet Gaynor and Fredric March

Directed By: William A. Wellman