A Star is Born – 1937
Color!! Yay Color!! This is the first Best Picture Nominee that I have seen that was filmed in Technicolor. It is a wonderful thing, but not as wonderful as it might sound. Color films were still new and unperfected. The colors were slightly off. They had problems with lighting. Shadows were difficult to work with. But it was color! True, the last few minutes of the 1934 Nominee, The House of Rothschild, was in color, but here we have the entire film!
The movie starred Janet Gaynor and Fredrick March as the two leads, Esther Blodgett and Norman Main. She was a small town girl with dreams of becoming a big movie star. He was a big movie star who had dreams of his next bottle of booze. Together they had an epic romance that was complex and subtle, passionate and tragic.
The plot followed Esther’s rise to stardom and Norman’s descent into alcoholism. The film was more dramatic than I had been expecting and the ending took me by surprise. It was sad and yet completely appropriate at the same time. The movie could not have ended any other way.
Ok, let me back up a bit. The movie begins as Esther is at home with her family, her bitter old crone of an aunt, her unsupportive father, and her wise old grandmother. Her aunt was played by Clara Blandick who, while I hated the character, I applaud the actress for making the character believable and effective. We weren’t supposed to like her. Blandick, of course was better known for her role of Aunt Em in The Wizard of Oz.
The kindly grandmother was played by May Robson. She was the kind of grandmother anyone would love to have. She was supportive, understanding, and full of good advice. She even had a few precious dollars to spare. When Esther tells the family about her dreams of stardom, grannie sends her on her way with her blessings. Esther gets to Hollywood, California and has little success finding work as an actress. She takes a job as a waitress at a studio executive party. Unfortunately, the Hollywood big-shots don’t even seem to see her as she serves hors d’oeuvres. But who is it that does notice her? Fictional Hollywood star Norman Main.
He falls for Esther and gets her a screen test with his good friend and producer Oliver Niles, played by Adolphe Menjou. The cameras love her and she becomes an over-night success. As her star begins to rise, Norman’s begins to fall.
I though both Gaynor and March did very well and they had a good on-screen chemistry. Gaynor was beautiful and was believable as a woman who sees her husband spiraling down into the depths of alcoholic depression. And March played a good and believable drunk. His performance was not too flamboyant or over the top. It was appropriately pathetic.
I also really liked Menjou. In fact, I like him in just about everything in which I see him. He has a kindly face and a calm, gentle demeanor that just makes the characters he plays likeable.
But I think that the main thing that audiences of 1937 liked about the film was the romance. It was a relationship in which each lover was willing to sacrifice themselves for the other. In the end, Esther was ready to give up her career as a movie star to help him through his alcoholism. When Norman learned of her decision to do so, he loved her so much, he gave up his life to ensure that she wouldn’t. It was truly a romance worthy of a Best Picture Nominee.
And finally, I would be remiss if I failed to mention another actor in the film. He is an actor that I have never really cared for. Every time I see him on the screen, see that slow and moronic look on his face, hear that ridiculous voice of his, I have the urge to cringe. He is Andy Devine. But I must admit, I liked him in this film. He played Esther’s one and only friend Danny McGuire before she meets Norman. He just played a nice guy who was there to help Esther when she needed it. In my research, I learned that he was a very busy character actor whose career spanned from 1928 to 1973. I guess I’ll have to revise my opinion of him as an actor.