A Star Is Born (1937)

Directed by William A. Wellman. Starring Janet Gaynor, Fredric March, Adolphe Menjou, Andy Devine, May Robson, Lionel Stander, Peggy Wood, Owen Moore, Edgar Kennedy, Elizabeth Jenns, J. C. Nugent.

Years and imitations have done no favors to the “freshness” of a tale that now feels as old as time, but then again, even this “original” screen story was very similar to What Price Hollywood? (among others) a few years prior. The telling itself, however, retains the simple power of its distinguished device, with deft transitional short cuts in tracing intersecting career paths of “it girl” actress on the rise (Gaynor) and her movie star husband on the decline (March), plus the fascinating high drama of behind-the-showbiz-scenery, the kind that transforms gossip rag into Eugene O’Neill. It’s the performances that make this one last, though; North Dakota dreamer Gaynor, wide-eyed and sincere, is believably swept into the arms of spiraling lush March, once the talk of the town and soon to be a discarded embarrassment (loosely inspired by silent film star John Bowers). Her entrance into the film acting profession is the stuff of fantasy, of course, but that’s the illusion of Hollywood; the industry’s reaction to a falling star, however, is all too credible (as are March’s soused pantomimes). Script by Wellman, Robert Carson, Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell, though only the first two were given Academy Awards for Original Story; also earned W. Howard Greene an honorary Oscar for his Technicolor photography. Remade in 1954, 1976, and 2018.

84/100