A Star Is Born (1954) on Netflix
Esther Blodgett sings with a band. Norman Maine, a former matinee idol, comes drunk onto her stage, and she covers for him. He tells her she can break into movies.
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Trailer
Plot summary
Esther Blodgett performs with a band, and Norman Maine, once a matinee idol, is watching his stardom slip away. He turns up drunk at a Shrine Auditorium event, where publicist Matt Libby tries to keep him offstage. Norman rushes into an orchestra's number, and Esther pretends he is part of the act. He invites her to dinner, hears her sing at an after-hours club, and urges her to break into movies. She quits the band and tells her bandmate Danny McGuire she is leaving for Los Angeles. He tracks her down after hearing her on a television commercial. Oliver Niles thinks Esther is only a passing interest, but at Norman's request he gives her a small role. The studio renames her Vicki Lester, and when Norman persuades Niles to listen to her sing, she wins a big musical part.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about A Star Is Born (1954)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Director George Cukor wanted Cary Grant, whom he had directed three times, for the male lead and read the whole script with him. Grant called it the role of a lifetime but refused, preferring to travel with his wife Betsy Drake, and Cukor never forgave him.
- When the Best Actress Oscar went to Grace Kelly instead of Judy Garland, Groucho Marx sent Garland a telegram: "Dear Judy, this is the biggest robbery since Brink's".
- Judy Garland and James Mason's Oscar nominations for Best Actress and Best Actor marked the first time a pair of actors were nominated for the same roles as an earlier pair, Janet Gaynor and Fredric March in the 1937 original.
- After eight days of filming that included both standard and CinemaScope takes of "The Man That Got Away", studio executives decided A Star Is Born would be the first Warner Brothers picture shot in CinemaScope.
- Stewart Granger was the frontrunner for the male lead but withdrew because he could not adjust to George Cukor's habit of acting out scenes as a form of direction; James Mason was eventually signed.
- Warner executives, afraid the running time would cut into daily showings, made drastic cuts without director George Cukor while he was away scouting locations in India for Bhowani Junction. The 154-minute release lost two musical numbers and crucial dramatic scenes.
- Seven to eight minutes of matching footage for dramatic scenes was never located. Rather than scrap those scenes, the 1983 restoration laid the surviving soundtrack over filtered production stills assembled from the archives.
- As filming dragged on, George Cukor had to cope with constant script changes and an unstable leading lady, Judy Garland, who was plagued by chemical dependencies, weight fluctuations, illnesses and hypochondria.
