Movie:"A Star Is Born" (1954)

I grew up liking Streisand's 1976.version of "A Star Is Born" (and of course,its soundtrack) and being only vaguely aware there is an older original,I decided after all these years it is probably time to see the real thing. It turned out even 1954.famous version is not the original - for that I would have to find 1937. movie,some more research! - and it also turned out watching this elephant saga was not entirely pleasurable.

There is a beauty and excitement in approaching the movie without really knowing anything about it - you might simply end up being thrilled because everything is new,unexpected and fresh. On the other hand,it helps if you know that darn thing goes on for 3 hours,which I didn't know. I actually fell asleep and had to continue on another occasion when I convinced myself that I should get over with it - not exactly description of a good time.

It has been said that bad Hollywood producers ruined the movie because they cut out 30 minutes of original version and they destroyed everything,including Garland's chances to win Academy Award. And here am I now to say the movie is over-long (in original,restored version),staggers along with unconvincing characters who burst into song way too often and worse of all,I find both Garland and Mason annoying. First of all,the movie is built on assumption that Judy Garland is adorable beauty whose talent outshines everybody around,which she was not - just one look at her plump,short figure (too often surrounded with real beauties) and it is clear she was everything but. True,she had a good voice but it is old-fashioned,Ethel Merman belt-until-you-puke style with lots of windmill hand gestures and the movie has Garland singing simply too much (she was also one of the movie investors,in other words movie was about HER). Second,James Mason's character is creepy and is it not clear why would anybody follow him through thick and thin when the guy is

Incorrigible asshole who is pulling everybody down with him. Only Garland - who in that case could be described as self-destructive in her own way - wants to support such a character,but not really doing anything to shake him out of drunken stupor except of crying her eyes out.

I continued watching the second part of the movie,feeling a bit uneasy,knowing it will be an ordeal but it turned out fine - Garland is very convincing in her nervous breakdown (while wearing cheerful make up for a musical scene) and Mason eventually kills himself.

There is some good music in all of this,but too often its simply badly edited - now I'm talking about the full-lenght elephant - the way it was originally imagined this is simply too long and rambling + it could have been two movies instead of one.No wonder it was cut shorter and to be honest, I still like Streisand 1976. version. In fact,I might just watch it again.