A Star Is Born - Limited Edition Deluxe Box Set

Starring:Judy Garland, James Mason, Jack Carson, Charles Bickford, Tommy Noonan, Lucy Marlow, Amanda Blake, Irving Bacon, Hazel Shermet, Lotus Robb, Pat O'Malley, Frank Ferguson, Ezelle Poule, Allen Kramer, Ruth Brady, Henry Kulky, Ila McAvoy, Al Thompson, Oscar Blanke, Hal J. Moore
Director: George Cukor
Studio: Creative Design Art
Product Type: DVD

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"This is Mrs. Norman Maine": Could these be the most heartbreaking words Judy Garland ever uttered? George Cukor directed and Moss Hart wrote this film, a musical remake of the 1937 original. The story is a show-biz classic: He (James Mason) is a major movie star who is past his prime and on the way down; she (Garland) is an aspiring singer who, with his help, becomes a bigger star than he was. Their marriage becomes a seesaw of success and failure, as he slowly drinks himself to death out of bitterness at the fickleness of fame, until his bad behavior begins to threaten the career of his long-suffering and loving wife. Mason and Garland are both terrific, with her singing "The Man That Got Away" among others. Remade in a 1976 Barbra Streisand vanity production. --Marshall Fine

Customer Reviews:

Good Or Bad, Garland's Talent Can't Be Ignored.......2007-05-18

This is the darnedest movie to rate. I usually don't judge musicals the same way that I judge other movies. I just rate their production value, since that's often the only reason to see a musical. (Who rates an Arnold Schwarzeneger movie for its screenplay?) But when I first saw "A Star Is Born" I had mixed opinions. Great acting, great directing, great screenplay (for what could be done with such a story), and even the cinematography seemed two decades ahead of its time. And of course, there were great production numbers. All this, it seems, was tragically sunk by a hackneyed, thrice-filmed story. Can I really enjoy a feel-bad musical? And what of its ending? After three hours of being Judy Garland's hate letter to Hollywood, why the schmalzy conclusion?

Nevermind. After my first analysis, I've been drawn back to the movie time and time again, and I think I know why. Judy Garland's colossal talent is unparallelled. Not only was she a great actor, not only was she an above average dancer and funny raconteur, not only was she the greatest singer I have ever heard -- she was a legend, clearly in her own time.

The fifteen-minute born-in-a-trunk segment reveals the core of her amazing legacy: in only four years she went from being a drug-addicted has-been who was fired from MGM to being "Miss Show Business", who can sing a fifteen-minute homage to herself in her own movie. ("Born In a Trunk" could be retitled "The Myth of Judy Garland Put to Song.")

Her acting here is very different from her MGM acting, now that she is no longer playing the glossed-over characters of Metro's escapism days. The scene late in the movie where she as Ester recovers her emotions just in time to get in a filmed shot for a musical comes almost as a physical shock. Norman Maine and Esther Blogett seem like they are both projections of different angles of the real Judy Garland. Or is that just more of the legend? On one hand there is the very charming and talented starlett whose limit is the sky, and on the other hand there is the polarizing, self-destructive, addict. Every now and then the movie shows little hints of Norman Maine's brilliance shining through the surface, a credit to Mason's acting abilities.

And then there is the production value. Unlike her earlier musicals, she does all the singing here, in multiple styles and multiple settings, from "The Man That Got Away" in closing-for-the-night cafe to "A New World," sung entirely a capella while the audience watches the ocean waves. (Another shock. Was this a first for a musical?) The movie has my favorite performance of "Swanee," and a joyful (in an otherwise unhappy movie) costume number "Lose That Long Face." I wonder how much of the tap-dancing was choreographed and how much was improvised. Garland wasn't noted for being the greatest dancer, but Gene Kelly said, "What you could give her she could learn like that." My favorite number is the one where Garland mimicks cliches from Fifties musical production numbers using only her living room props. (And the movie still cost six million dollars?)

Should I recommend this movie? I think yes. Even if you might not like it, it is important enough of a movie that you should see it at least once. You may get the same original impression that I got, but I was driven to think about it long after it was over, and like I said, I've seen it many times since.

A tribute to the talent of Judy Garland.......2007-04-10

A Star Is Born explores the dark underbelly of a ruthless Hollywood. Judy Garland plays Esther Blodget whose star is on the rise while her famous husband played by James Mason is on the way down.

Garland is superb in the musical numbers but struggles with some of the dramatics. To be fair director Cukor places huge demands on her with many long scenes. It's ironic that Garland plays the wife of a fading alcoholic star...

In its restored version this film is very long at 3 hours, and the photographs used to fill in the gaps where the film is missing is rather off-putting.

For its time this is quite a hard-hitting film, unglamorous in its depiction of an unforgiving business. There is very little musical score -outside of the musical numbers - of course, which makes this film seem more modern. Cukor lets the actors tell the story.

The film's musical numbers are superb and the film is a great tribute to the talent of Garland. George Cukor's direction is also striking. Visually the film is superb. Definitely worth seeing.

Garland's Shining Hour in a Pristine Print of Her Legendary Vehicle.......2007-01-29

Marked by a pervasive sense of melancholy, the 1954 musical version of the familiar Hollywood warhorse will forever be remembered as Judy Garland's most acclaimed work in films. Even though she would go on to a handful of films in the early 1960's, this was her last leading role in a major Hollywood production, an ironic point since she plays an emerging movie star on the rise. True, she doesn't look her best in the film, but her fulsome talent is on full, heart-wrenching display as Esther Blodgett, an obscure but thriving band singer who becomes movie star Vicki Lester thanks to Norman Maine, an alcoholic has-been actor in career free-fall. Their love story and the opposing trajectories of their careers are tracked meticulously by Moss Hart's shrewdly observed screenplay and George Cukor's sensitive direction.

The double-sided 2000 DVD provides the 176-minute restored version, which is just five minutes less than what was shown at the original premiere. Until 1983, the half-hour of footage excised after the premiere was thought lost, but film historian Ron Haver found much of it and supervised an extraordinary restoration effort that includes a necessary albeit brief use of production stills to match up with the complete soundtrack. Even with such technicalities, the resulting film is even more of a landmark musical drama, emotionally resonant in spite of certain pacing issues with the storyline. Cukor's approach is probably more leisurely than the relatively hard-boiled material requires since he includes so many establishing and lengthy shots, but his direction shows his legendary sensitivity toward actors.

While he comes across a bit too robust as a fading matinee idol, James Mason vigorously captures Norman's scornful pride and self-pity. He may lack Fredric March's innate sense of vulnerability in the original, but Mason makes the character's inner torment more palpable. As for Garland, she brings so much of her own history to Esther/Vicki that her scenes feel alive with her vibrant, masochistic personality. She is aided immeasurably by the masterful songs of Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin, most significantly her torchy rendition of "The Man That Got Away", as perfect a musical movie moment as has been ever produced. While her work in the fifteen-minute "Born in the Trunk" sequence is impressive, it is really later in the film when she soars, in particular, when she segues from the tap-happy "Lose That Long Face" into a breakdown scene in her dressing room with sympathetic studio head Oliver Niles portrayed with his typically stentorian fervor by Charles Bickford.

The print condition and sound quality on the DVD are superb. There are also some fascinating extras on the B-side starting with three alternative takes on "The Man That Got Away", each distinctive in presentation with costume and lighting changes, a must for Garland fans. Also included is a very brief deleted number within the "Born in the Trunk" sequence", "When My Sugar Walks Down the Street". Three vintage pieces have been gathered - a brief newsreel piece of the premiere, a four-minute clip of the Coconut Grove premiere party held after the premiere, and most interestingly, a half-hour kinescope akin to the current-day red carpet pre-shows with an amazing parade of period stars expressing little more than good wishes on their way to the theater. Lastly, the theatrical trailers for all three versions of "A Star Is Born" are also included.

Garland Is Great, Mason Still Greater.......2007-01-09

It's hard to impossible to believe that George Cukor's 1954 musical remake of A STAR IS BORN was ever a box-office failure or considered to be anything less than a perfect movie. Opening with a Hollywood premiere scene similar to the one that begins SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, A STAR IS BORN quickly proves itself a brilliant expose of the cruelty and greed of the Hollywood "star" system. In the now-famous plotline, alcoholic movie actor Norman Maine (James Mason) "discovers" aspiring singing star Esther Blodgett (Judy Garland), takes a chance on her talent (she has that "little something extra," he says), and gets her a screen test and a film contract. She slowly but surely becomes a star, while Norman's "star" falls due to his drinking. They marry, but even Esther's love cannot save Norman from ultimate self-destruction. This plot summary suggests a "show-within-a-show"-type musical, and in fact A STAR IS BORN sometimes presents us with a show-within-a-show-within-a-show (we watch Esther watching herself on the big screen, and in her movie she plays a performer) - a conceit that gives the film a disoriented quality, even as Norman is himself unable to distinguish between illusion and reality.

One could almost call A STAR IS BORN the musical for people who normally dislike musicals: its drama - and particularly Norman's personal drama - is of Shakespearean stature, and all of its musical numbers are either of the "onstage" variety or the "one character [Esther] singing to entertain another character [Norman]" variety; there is, in other words, no artifice that would be at odds with realistic drama. Moreover, Judy Garland's singing is so inspired as to disarm any criticism. "The Man That Got Away," the song that first attracts Norman to Esther, is a classic sequence, from Garland's hummed notes at the beginning to the way the brass matches the power of her voice at the song's climaxes. Garland has other great numbers, too (all, except those comprising the "Born in a Trunk" sequence, written by the team of Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin), including "Lose That Long Face," "It's a New World," and "Here's What I'm Here For," a song symbolic of Esther's willingness to sacrifice everything to care for her husband.

While Judy's performance is great, James Mason's is greatness itself. His brilliance as Norman Maine lies in the fact that he never allows this tortured man to seem merely pathetic to others; even as he plans his own suicide, he puts a good face on the situation with the help of his good looks and uniquely English wit and charm. The movie's villain is Norman's press agent (Jack Carson, an actor not known for playing villains), who out of jealousy and spite undermines Norman's courageous effort to stop drinking, by making him believe he can never be anything better than a drunk. Charles Bickford is the well-meaning studio head, whose flaw is that he is too cautious and conventional in his attempts to help Norman.

Clocking in at three hours (even with a freeze-frame device telescoping some of the action), A STAR IS BORN is a strange film, a combination of backstage musical, Hollywood expose, love story, tragedy, and inspirational story. That it wasn't fully understood or appreciated when it first appeared is perhaps understandable after all, but it should no longer be neglected.

A Star is Born Fails to Capture Audience's Sympathy.......2006-11-28

A Star Is Born is a disturbing film for all the wrong reasons. By failing to get the audience to sympathize with a movie star's tragic downfall, the film displays a schizophrenic quality. There is almost a breakdown in the relationship between the audience and what happens on screen. This is in no part due to the performances by the lead actors; it's the nature of the material itself. Perhaps if we were to see the James Mason character as a likeable star before failure and booze drain away his ambition and reason for living, the audience would understand what the Garland character sees in him and we could sympathize with both characters. Instead, we see Garland's character despairing over a not very likeable washed-up drunk and we're left feeling as empty as the film itself.

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