A Star Is Born (1937)

Already familiar with two famous re-makes (from 1976. and 1954.) I decided to check out the grandmother of them all, less-known and today almost forgotten 1937. original that first came up with a story about young actress who raise to superstardom just to eclipse worthless husband who out of love decided to step out of her way and into the ocean. One of the reasons why I was curious to see this one was excellent Fredric March whom I knew and loved in his Oscar-winning "The Best Years Of Our Lives" (1946.) but knew nothing about the rest of the cast.

Is it any good, watching some 75 years later? Not really. Strange but some older movies have aged much better than this one - there are numerous silent movies and black & white fantasies (particularly ones with Marlene Dietrich) that still look exciting and dreamlike where this 1937. tehnicolor romantic drama basically appears half-baked. The main difference with later versions is that this is straight drama without any music at all - fine by me, but there are really just handful of characters talking to each other like on a stage and in one memorable scene towards the end of the movie both main actress and her grandmother looks towards the wall, away from the camera (this was supposed to be dramatical and very serious scene but we, audience don't see their faces!) - main actress in role of anonymous Esther Blodgett who turns into film star Vicky Lester is mousy Janet Gaynor. Now, Gaynor was supposedly very good in her time, in fact she was the very first actress ever to win "Oscar" however I find her completely grey, boring and uninteresting, there is nothing in the script that suggest why should this ordinary looking farm girl ever reach superstardom and suddenly becoming fabulous & glamourous. Film suggest "this is what happens when you follow your dreams" but actually if Esther wanted to escape her dreary farm surroundings and join ranks of Garbo,Dietrich and other famous celluloid stars there must be something special about her - the story explains that thousands of young actress in Hollywood are starving and looking for any job but look, completely plain and ordinary Esther follows her dreams and this is what happens. Where later re-makes show that Esther had excellent singing voice to lift her above he competition (and it conveniently suited Garland and Streisand to make themselves centre of the movie to the point of taking all the focus) this non-sining, unexperienced farm girl is now successful, elegant and wealthy without any explanations how and why she should be such. Her main gift is that she is so sweet, unpretentious and ordinary  - I really dislike the word "ordinary" and can't swallow it anyway, specially when it comes to Hollywood where in order to succeed one needs to have something special to be spotted and discovered between competition of thousands.

In this case, something special was Esther husband, big movie star and actor Norman Maine who simply falls in love with this grey mouse (even though elegant beauties are all over him) and he recommends her to movie producers. Who then put some make up on her, elegant hat on her head and voilá the star is born, though she is still boring as hell. Maine quickly learns that his career is finished because "audience don't like him anymore" and without any attempt to work hard, search for work with other companies or simply do something else with his life, decides he is too big embarrassment to his wife and drowns himself. Poor him, poor Esther, poor us watching this. Fredric March is actually quite good in his role (younger and slimmer than in "The Best Years Of Our Lives") but than it seems that alcoholic roles always suited him. Both later versions with Garland and Streisand vaguely follow the same story - grey mouse is always called Esther - but even though they are singing too much, at least they had excellent voices so at least we could understand why would Esther ever become so big. The best version is probably the one with Judy Garland filmed in 1954. - not because Streisand is bad (both of them are narcissistic) but because it was filmed in golden years of Hollywood and have magic touch characteristic for that era.