The applause of the world -- and then this!

Destiny came at her with a leer!

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. In the original, Janet Gaynor played Esther Blodgett, who with no training or contacts came to Hollywood hoping for stardom. The remake, scripted by Moss Hart, is a shade more realistic: Garland's Esther, though far removed from fame, is a working professional singer/dancer when first we meet her. Both Gaynor and Garland are transformed from "Esther Blodgett" to "Vicki Lester" after being screen-tested, though Gaynor goes on to star in fluffy costume dramas while Garland more logically headlines big-budget musicals. The 1937 Star is Born costarred Fredric March as Norman Maine, Esther/Vicki's sponsor-cum-spouse. March patterned his performance after the tragic John Barrymore, reining in his emotions in favor of pure technique; James Mason's interpretation is more original, more emotional, and far more effective (who can forget the scene where Norman sobbingly overhears Vicki planning to give up her career for his sake?) As the studio's long-suffering publicist, the 1937 version's Lionel Stander is more abrasive and unpleasant than the 1954 version's introspective, intellectual Jack Carson; on the other hand, Adolphe Menjou and Charles Bickford are fairly evenly matched in the role of the studio head. Several important omissions are made in the remake. The 1937 Star is Born included Esther's indomitable old grandma (May Robson), a helpful assistant director (Andy Devine) and a soft-hearted landlord (Edgar Kennedy); all three characters are missing from the 1954 version, though elements of each can be found in the "best friend/severest critic" character played by Tommy Noonan. Wisely, both versions end with the grieving Vicki Lester coming out of her shell at a public gathering, greeting the audience with a proud, defiant "Good evening, everybody. This is Mrs. Norman Maine". Though directors William Wellman (1937 version) and George Cukor (1954 version) handle this finale in their own distinctive manners, the end result is equally effective emotionally. 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. 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 (Footnote: Judy Garland had previously played Vicki Lester in a 1942 Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of the original A Star is Born)


A Star Is Born is a 1954 American musical film directed by George Cukor. The screenplay written by Moss Hart was an adaptation of the original 1937 film, which was based on the original screenplay by Robert Carson, Dorothy Parker, and Alan Campbell. In 2000, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
The film ranked #43 on the American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Passions list in 2002 and #7 on its list of best musicals in 2006. The song "The Man That Got Away" was ranked #11 on AFI's list of the 100 top tunes in films.
Star Judy Garland had not made a movie since she had mutually negotiated the release from her MGM contract soon after filming began on Royal Wedding in 1950, and the film was promoted heavily as her comeback. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and NBC, which was televising the ceremony, sent a film crew to the hospital room where she was recuperating after giving birth to her son Joey in order to carry her acceptance speech live if she won, but she lost to Grace Kelly for The Country Girl.


Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called the film "one of the grandest heartbreak dramas that has drenched the screen in years." He added, "The whole thing runs for three hours, and during this extraordinary time a remarkable range of entertainment is developed upon the screen . . . No one surpasses Mr. Cukor at handling this sort of thing, and he gets performances from Miss Garland and Mr. Mason that make the heart flutter and bleed . . . Theirs is a credible enactment of a tragic little try at love in an environment that packages the product. It is the strong tie that binds the whole show. But there is more that is complementary to it. There is the muchness of music that runs from a fine, haunting torch-song . . . to a mammoth, extensive production number recounting the career of a singer . . . And there is, through it all, a gentle tracing of clever satire of Hollywood, not as sharp as it was in the original, but sharp enough to be stimulating fun."[12]
Time said Garland "gives what is just about the greatest one-woman show in modern movie history," while Newsweek said the film is "best classified as a thrilling personal triumph for Judy Garland. As an actress Miss Garland is more than adequate. As a mime and comedienne she is even better. But as a singer she can handle anything from torch songs and blues to ballads. In more ways than one, the picture is hers."[5] When the Oscar for Best Actress went to Grace Kelly instead of Garland, Groucho Marx called it "the biggest robbery since Brink's."

For years, Garland fans and film historians expressed great interest in viewing the missing footage from this film. Beginning about 1981, film preservationist Ronald Haver did extensive research of the Warner Bros. film vaults and located some of the missing scenes, including two complete musical numbers, "Here's What I'm Here For" and "Lose That Long Face".
In 1983, a 176-minute "restored" (i.e. reconstructed) version was shown in theaters and then released on home video. The project was a collaboration between the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the studio. Some of the missing footage had to be reconstructed using pan and scan of production stills, accompanied by the restored dialogue. The original multi-track stereophonic sound was also restored.

Release Date: October 8, 1954


Distrib: Warner Brothers