Underplayed Gems

A Star Is Born (1954)

A Star Is Born poster
Directed by
George Cukor
Genre
drama film, musical film, romance film
Country
United States
Runtime
3h 01m
Rated
PG
Rating
7.1 of 10 from 333 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
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How it feels

An aspiring singer marries a famous actor whose career is declining while hers rises. Her husband struggles with his own demons as her fame grows.

melodramaticromanticemotionalbittersweetclassicintensestar-driventragic

What happens

A Star Is Born is a 1954 American musical drama film directed by George Cukor, written by Moss Hart, and starring Judy Garland and James Mason. Hart's screenplay is an adaptation of the original 1937 film, based on the original screenplay by Robert Carson, Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell, and from the same story by William A. Wellman and Carson, with uncredited input from six additional writers—David O. Selznick, Ben Hecht, Ring Lardner Jr., John Lee Mahin, Budd Schulberg and Adela Rogers St. Johns. It is the second of four official productions of A Star Is Born, with the first in 1937, starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March; the third in 1976, starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson; and the fourth in 2018, starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper. Garland had not made a film since she had negotiated release from her MGM contract soon after filming began on Royal Wedding in 1950, and Star was promoted heavily as her comeback. For her performance, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her co-lead, Mason, was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. This marked the first time that a pair of actors were nominated for the same roles as a previous pair of actors (Gaynor and March in the 1937 original version) for their same respective films. In 2000, the 1954 film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." It ranked No. 43 on the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Passions list in 2002 and No. 7 on its list of greatest musicals in 2006. The song "The Man That Got Away" was ranked No. 11 on AFI's list of 100 top songs in films. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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