Let's be realistic.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

The story that would make it to the screen no less than three times over the years debuted in this Selznick International release from 1937.Everyone knows the story -- woman goes to Hollywood to make it big, makes it big, and then watches her famous has-been husband devolve into depression and alcoholism. It's a story that both glamorizes Hollywood and exposes the toll it takes on those who dare to survive in it.Janet Gaynor and Fredric March play the doomed couple, and William A. Wellman provides the direction. Technicolor was new at the time and it shows. W. Howard Greene received a special Academy Award for the film's color cinematography, but it's really a quite ugly film. The colors are muddy and murky, and the lighting choices are odd -- some scenes are so darkly lit it's literally difficult to see the actors, like a film noir in color."A Star Is Born" won the Academy Award for Best Original Story, which was written by Wellman and Robert Carson. Carson also snagged a nomination, along with Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell, for writing the screenplay based on that story, but lost to the year's Best Picture winner, "The Life of Emile Zola." In addition to its two writing nominations, the film was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Wellman), Best Actor (March), Best Actress (Gaynor), and Best Assistant Director, in only the fifth and final year that odd category would exist. As an Oscar buff, my favorite scene in the movie is the one set at an Academy Awards banquet, as it gives an indication of what the ceremonies were like before they moved to the more traditional theater settings we're used to now.Grade: B+

Copyright 7 June 1937 by Selznick International Pictures, Inc. Released through United Artists. New York opening at Radio City Music Hall, 22 April 1937 (ran 3 weeks). U.S. release: 30 April 1937. 12 reels. 111 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Unknown becomes star but finds that professional success doesn't bring domestic bliss.NOTES: Academy Award, Color Photography, W. Howard Greene. Academy Award, Original Story, William A. Wellman and Robert Carson (defeating Black Legion, In Old Chicago, The Life of Emile Zola, 100 Men and a Girl).Also nominated for Best Picture (The Life of Emile Zola), Best Actor, Fredric March (Spencer Tracy in Captains Courageous), Best Actress, Janet Gaynor (Luise Rainer in The Good Earth), Best Directing (Leo McCarey for The Awful Truth), Assistant Director (In Old Chicago), Screenplay (The Life of Emile Zola).Number 4 on The Film Daily annual poll of U.S. film critics. Negative cost: $1,221,382. Initial domestic rental gross: $2,550,000.Shooting commenced 31 October 1936 and finished 28 December 1936. Re-made in 1954 and again in 1976. The 1954 version starring Judy Garland, James Mason, Charles Bickford and Jack Carson, directed by George Cukor, is the best.COMMENT: A bit disappointing to see the original after all these years. Gaynor is no match for Judy Garland in the 1954 version. She looks far too old for the part. (She was in fact only 31, but the color camera is most unflattering. Nevertheless A Star Is Born was the high point of her professional career. Two films later, she married Adrian and retired, returning to the screen only once, co- starring with Pat Boone in the 1957 Bernadine.) The miscasting of Gaynor throws the whole film out of balance and off-key. March, however, does remarkably well and is more than a match for Mason in what is basically an unsympathetic part. We also much prefer Menjou to Bickford (a dull, heavy actor even at the best of times). Stander's vicious press agent is evenly matched with Jack Carson's 1954 interpretation. In each case, the role has been cleverly tailored by the writers to suit the player's distinctive personality. In fact, it's remarkable how closely the Garland remake follows the original script, merely eliminating the rustic background (and the May Robson role)* to make room for the musical numbers. All the same, the original screenplay doesn't have the sharpness, the wit, the incisiveness of the 1954 version and seems much tamer (and even duller) today than it was in 1937. The fault is compounded by Wellman's direction which is fairly straightforward and lacks the style Cukor brought to the later picture. Appealing color photography and great production values compensate.* Oddly enough, Selznick himself wanted to eliminate these scenes but was talked out of it by writer John Lee Mahin.

Why bother to compare this film with the remakes. It is a breathtaking film with outstanding acting by Gaynor and March, each playing fragile people who must balance fame with the realities of life. March's actor persona is one of the most demanding roles in all of cinema history. The price of fading glory is a huge price when you are dealing with those whose audiences demand more. Alcoholism is such a terrible curse. I've seen it my whole life and Norman's actions speak truth to the disease. Gaynor's Vicki owes so much to Norman and yet she is a treasure in her own right. She stays with him time after time and he betrays her time after time, including the crowning moment of her career. The sad thing is he knows what he is doing and can't help himself. He knows he will destroy her and he is left with no options. Her star rises and his descends into the depths.

Director William Wellman notoriously hated actors. It seems bizarre then that the one time he wrote his own screenplay it was a rather affectionate look at the lives of the stars. Hollywood didn't do introspection all that much, but here was woven a tragical drama that was absolutely in tune with the Tinseltown ethos, even as it brought to light its more troubled aspects.Wellman was, for the biggest part of his career, a director of action movies. And even though A Star is Born is a drama centring on a female character, he still films it with an emphasis on dynamics and rugged impact. Janet Gaynor is introduced with a rapid dolly-in as she comes through a doorway. In the scene that follows everyone is spitting out their dialogue. The scene ends with a close-up of Gaynor, after which she swiftly exits from the frame, leaving the screen totally black. And this is very much the pattern for the rest of the picture. It's a neat approach which gives things a fast-paced and punchy feel.As to the actual stars of this movie, Gaynor and Fredric March were two of the most experienced players around who were still in the right age and popularity bracket to get lead roles. Janet Gaynor was one of the more subtle and realistic performers of that era. She has such earnestness in her eyes, and despite actually being at the end of her own illustrious career, she utterly convinces as a keen youngster taking her first steps in the industry. March is much more theatrical, but he has an intensity that makes him very watchable.A Star is Born seems to have become a kind of touchstone story of Hollywood stardom. It's been remade twice for different generations, and a fourth version is reportedly in the works as I type. This first version is not quite the best, but it lays down a story that will remain timeless for as long as Hollywood continues to thrive.