Sadly Over-hyped

Great Film overall

Fantastic!

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

In 1950, in one of her greatest films, "All About Eve," Bette Davis, in the role of Margo Channing, played a Broadway stage actress "of a certain age" who has become fearful about her future career and personal attractiveness. Two years later, Ms. Davis essayed a similar kind of role--an aging Hollywood actress who can no longer get parts and who is on the edge of bankruptcy--in Stuart Heisler's "The Star." When we first encounter Margaret Elliot, she is standing outside an auction house that is selling off all her worldly effects, the words "Going, going, gone" also serving as a cruel commentary on her vanishing career. A former Oscar winner, Margaret is now divorced, broke and with little in the way of prospects. Her young daughter Gretchen (played by 14-year-old Natalie Wood, here on the cusp of womanhood) still reveres her, but to the rest of Tinseltown, she is "box office poison." After serving a night in the can for a DUI, Margaret is bailed out by her one-time fellow actor Jim Johannsen (played by the great Sterling Hayden). The possibility is held out for a normal life with this gentle and understanding man, but can Margaret resist the urge to try for a comeback, in the form of an "older sister" screen test?Often seen as a film that closely parallels Davis' own career, "The Star" is only analogous to a certain point. Like that of Margaret Elliot, Davis' career of course had its ups and downs, its Oscar win(s) and its fights with the studio system. But unlike Margaret, Davis would go on to appear in many more great pictures in her later years (such as "The Virgin Queen," "The Catered Affair," "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?," "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte," "The Nanny," "The Whales of August" and on and on). Still, Davis must have identified closely with her character here, and it shows in some truly great work. In a film with numerous compelling scenes, two with Davis especially stand out: her drunk-driving episode while clutching her Oscar in one hand and a bottle in the other, simultaneously giving the imaginary listener a tour of Hollywood ("On your left is the home of Mr. and Mrs. Brinkman...better known to you tourists as Jeanne Crain...."), and the sequence in which she reacts, in horror, to the results of her most recent screen test. Bette, indeed, at her finest, and certainly worthy of her real-life Oscar nomination for her work here. Hayden, of course, is at his sterling best; how nice to see him playing a tender, kindly role, for a change, coming back into Margaret's life as some kind of impossibly understanding guardian angel. In another strange parallel, Hayden, an ex-sailor who became an actor to raise money for a boat, here plays an ex-actor who gives up his career to become a boat mechanic! And how strange to see Natalie, with her well-known fear of ships and the water, here blithely bouncing all over the deck of Johannsen's schooner!"The Star" is a compact film, coming in at 90 minutes, and Heisler serves it well. Five years earlier, he had directed Susan Hayward in her breakout film, "Smash-up: The Story of a Woman," which also featured a frustrated female entertainer going on a drunken bender. "The Star" is at least the equal of that great film, and indeed features what turns out to be an essential Bette Davis performance. No, it is not as fine a picture as "All About Eve" (few films are), but is still eminently likable, memorable and praiseworthy. All this, and a Hollywood happy ending, too!

Although Bette Davis received one of her ten Academy Award nominations for Best Actress in The Star, the thing that struck me about this film is how Sterling Hayden managed to land a part that was so much about himself in real life.Hayden had a great love of the sea and sailing and in this film he played a character akin to himself in real life. He was a one film wonder who Bette Davis made a leading man on a whim and who proves to be her salvation. As for Davis she is in the title role of a film star whose day has come and gone.Davis's character of Margaret Elliott is obsessed with her stardom, not her craft as an actress, but with film stardom. She's a has been who just refuses to accept that she's growing older. Had she been an actress first she would have considered transitioning to character roles. There are some similarities to Gloria Swanson's Norma Desmond. But unlike Desmond, Bette's money has dried up and instead of living in splendid and aloof isolation in her Beverly Hills mansion, she's having all kinds of problems both with bad behavior and the fact she can't get work. Margaret Elliott in The Star is a great role for Bette Davis. The film is contrived and the ending quite artificial, but it allows Davis to chew the scenery and make it work because it's a part of her character. The part was originally offered to Joan Crawford who turned it down and I think the film may have it a little too close to home for Joan. One reason I think Davis did the part was that she also recognized that it hit home for Crawford and she may have used Joan as a model of someone who was a movie star first and an actress second.The film is an absolute must for Davis fans.

Compared to other films, this film is not really demanding of Davis talent. The base story has to do with an aging actress having trouble getting roles. She is broke due to a combination of bad investments and sponge relatives & is even tossed out of her apartment.She has an wonderful daughter (played by 14 year old Natalie Wood) who is living with her ex husband due to her difficult circumstances. When she takes her Oscar statue out & does some drunk driving, she winds up in jail. She is bailed out by a man (Sterling Hayden) who loves her & stops her descent into hitting bottom.This is actually a thinly veiled story making fun of one of Davis' foes , IE. Joan Crawford. What it lacks is balance in the casting & script which is why it is not a Sunset Boulevard. The male characters have no teeth, unlike the Holden role in that movie. At least the story is told pretty much straight forwards.While this is not a movie to go out of the way for, if you like Davis it is a pleasant diversion for those times where there is nothing else to watch.

Aging in the movie business is one of the worst curses an actress must endure after reaching her forties. The indignities which Margaret Elliott must go through can destroy women that find themselves ignored by the same people they helped getting started. Margaret finds herself in a quandary because she is broke and has no prospects of ever working in pictures again. To add to the terrible situation she is facing, Margaret finds herself thrown out of the small apartment where she has been living in almost poverty because she cannot come up with the money owed to the corporation that owns the building.As we come to meet her, Margaret Elliott is passing by the auction place where most of her belongings are offered to any bidder in order to repay some of her debts. To make matters worse, she is confronted by her sister and brother-in-law, who have taken a lot from her, giving her nothing in return. At the height of her desperation, she gets drunk and is jailed for a night. Margaret is horrified by the scene she finds, even as drunk as she must be. The bail is paid by Jim Johansson, a kind man that feels he owes Margaret for her pushing him to be in movies, something that he was not comfortable with. Now he has his own business; he asks her to stay with him in the place by the water where he has his boat repair shop. Margaret's only daughter, is now living with her father in the home he is now sharing with Peggy, his second wife. Margaret, in spite of what common sense dictates, doesn't want to give up on whatever is left of her film career. For that she ask her agent to talk to a studio executive into letting her have a pivotal, but minor part in a movie based on a book she once optioned. The test she makes is a disaster because instead of following what the director wants from her, she decides to do it her way. Needless to say, she doesn't get the part. That incident proves to be what brings her back to her present reality and it is with Jim, who has proved he really loves her and cares for her and Gretchen, her daughter.This 1952 picture, directed by Stuart Heisler, is one of the most honest films about that reality in the fake world of Hollywood, a monster that creates and destroy lives as it sees fit. This story about a woman who gave her all to the medium and suddenly sees herself rejected and alone, owing to her creditors and without any prospects for ever finding a paying job in the movies.Bette Davis was about forty-one when this film was made. "The Star" followed one of her triumphs, "All About Eve". She was perfect for the part as it touched on many aspects of her own life and experience in the movie industry. That is why her Margaret Elliott feels so real and pathetic, at the same time. Ms. Davis did a marvelous job in conveying the difficulty she was under in a performance that gives the viewer chills just by watching the actress destroying herself.Sterling Hayden was much younger than his co-star, and yet, he makes an impression as the good man that realizes what Margaret is facing and comes to her rescue. Young Natalie Wood is sweet as Gretchen, the daughter Margaret couldn't keep with her. Warner Anderson and Minor Watson, are seen in supporting roles.The music is by Victor Young, and not by Alfred Newman, who scored most of the great Bette Davis' movies at Warner Bros. Ernest Lazlo is the cinematographer and in a funny moment Ms. Davis mentions the way he used to light up her scenes to make her look better, and all along he was behind the camera doing just that! Stuart Heisler and his star Bette Davis did a real fine job in telling it like it really was in that fantasy world of Hollywood that no one spoke about.