girl by locker says: Being that this movie has been remade twice since the original 1937 production, I really wanted to like it and had high hopes. It is a classic Hollywood story in which a young girl, Esther Blodgett, reaches for her dreams and sets her ambitions on becoming a movie star. When she reaches Los Angeles she eventually meets and falls in love with Norman Maine, a celebrity actor and alcoholic who is on his way down the stardom scale. He is still high enough in his career and can use his clout to get Esther her first foot in the door though, eventually, her star eclipses his.
While it is a solid movie, extremely well-written and posing interesting questions on what we will give up in order to obtain our ambitions, it overall left me lacking something. Frederic March is stellar in his role of Norman Maine and has a perfect balance between stardom, ego, fragility, and I was moved with how he played his spiral down into a has-been. Janet Gaynor also played an excellent part and was, in fact, a great choice to play the innocent girl not yet tainted with the trials of life. However, I just never bought into the fact that her character was able to outshine that of March's. He always seemed to be the bigger star to me, even when he turned into a nobody.
I give this movie 3 out of 5 stars on Netflix. It is definitely an interesting movie to watch, in particular for anyone who seeks a career in the entertainment industry or even a highly ambitious one. It will make you stop and think about what is important in life.
Juror #3 says: I believe I know why this movie was remade a few times - it didn't fulfill its potential. The other reason being that Hollywood has always been in love with Hollywood, so this tale of an actresses rise from humble beginnings to a movie star while a popular actor's star fades clearly struck a chord. In the end I couldn't help but think that the script needed about three more rewrites, but what I suspect is that this movie fell victim to producer edits. The story and character development was way too cautious for the plot line, as if the movie was created by focus groups. I felt everything in this movie fell short with one exception - the use of technicolor film. After watching so many black and white films up to this point, A Star is Born looked as if you could take each shot from the film, frame it and hang it on your wall. But that isn't nearly enough for me to recommend this movie. I rate it a 2/5
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