{"id":645,"date":"2014-09-25T13:58:05","date_gmt":"2014-09-25T17:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=645"},"modified":"2026-07-10T16:09:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T20:09:17","slug":"a-star-is-born-1954","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=645","title":{"rendered":"A Star is Born-1954"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Star is Born-1954<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director George Cukor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starring Judy Garland, James Mason<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scott’s Review #175<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Reviewed September 25, 2014<\/p>\n

Grade: B+<\/b><\/p>\n

A Star Is Born (1954) was considered Judy Garland’s much-touted comeback film and was very expensive for Warner Bros. to produce.<\/p>\n

Garland delivers her finest career performance, even better than her portrayal of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz (1939). The performance is multi-faceted, complex, comical, silly, poised, emotional, dramatic, and heartfelt.<\/p>\n

Playing Esther Blodgett- later changed to Vicki Lester for more Hollywood potential- she is a struggling lounge singer who meets a successful actor named Norman Maine, played wonderfully by James Mason.<\/p>\n

Esther saves Norman from public humiliation at a function where he attempts to take the stage while inebriated. They strike up a friendship, and he convinces her to pursue a film career. However, through a series of misunderstandings, she assumes he has ditched her.<\/p>\n

Determined to become a star anyway, Esther forges her path to success. They reconnect, and Norman recognizes her talent and pursues her professionally and romantically. They marry, and she becomes a star while his career hits the skids, mainly due to his alcoholism.<\/p>\n

The talented Mason and Garland are at the forefront of the film and are the reasons for its success.<\/p>\n

A few key scenes stand out to me as powerful or essential- The scene involving a musical number over a dinner of sandwiches in their posh living room is wonderfully merry and light; a delivery boy who does not know who Norman is ruins the mood and causes jealousy to come to a head in his marriage to Esther.<\/p>\n

Garland’s emotional scenes are excellent, especially in her dressing room, where she crumbles when she realizes Mason has hit rock bottom.<\/p>\n

The best scene is the Academy Awards scene, where a drunken Norman causes a public spectacle as Esther receives her top honor, spoiling her night and accidentally hitting her in the face in front of millions.<\/p>\n

What a forgiving woman Esther is for staying with him and ultimately choosing him at the risk of ruining her career.<\/p>\n

An interesting aspect of the story is that Garland’s character is not some ugly duckling transformed into Hollywood royalty\u2014she already has the talent.<\/p>\n

She needs a break, but is not down on her luck or starving. She makes a decent living with a touring band and is torn about leaving them.<\/p>\n

The musical numbers are inspiring, and one is reminded why Garland is such a star as she belts them out of the park like nobody’s business; however, they do little to further the plot.<\/p>\n

The film sometimes drags a bit, as is often the case in the first half, but the second half (post-intermission) is brilliant, and the ending is tragic yet heartwarming.<\/p>\n

Will Esther’s career continue to flourish?<\/p>\n

A major flaw with the film is the use of still frames with overlapping dialogue due to lost footage.<\/p>\n

This makes it very tough to follow the story, and the continuity is affected. It also comes across as ridiculous, and it’s disappointing that the story captures the viewer only to see a discolored still shot with audio.<\/p>\n

Indeed, this can be corrected.<\/p>\n

A Star Is Born (1954) is the perfect vehicle for Garland to return to her grand position among the Hollywood treasures.<\/p>\n

Oscar Nominations<\/strong>: Best Actor-James Mason, Best Actress-Judy Garland, Best Scoring of a Musical Picture, Best Song-“The Man That Got Away,” Best Art Direction, Color, Best Costume Design, Color<\/p>\n

Golden Globe Nominations: 2 wins-<\/strong>Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role-Musical or Comedy-Judy Garland (won), <\/strong>Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture-Musical or Comedy-James Mason (won)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Star is Born-1954 Director George Cukor Starring Judy Garland, James Mason Scott’s Review #175 Reviewed September 25, 2014 Grade: B+ A Star Is Born (1954) was considered Judy Garland’s much-touted comeback film and was very expensive for Warner Bros. to produce. Garland delivers her finest career performance, even better than her portrayal of Dorothy … Continue reading A Star is Born-1954<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,192,47,188],"tags":[12085,483,4863,473,486,4561],"class_list":["post-645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1954-films","category-dramas","category-musicals","category-musicdramas","tag-charles-bickford","tag-george-cukor","tag-jack-carson","tag-james-mason","tag-judy-garland","tag-lucy-marlow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=645"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23793,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions\/23793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}