Free A Star Is Born: The Making of the 1954 Movie and Its 1983 Restoration by Ronald Haver Page B

a millionaire polo
player, while the director hits the skids. Grateful to him for his early
generosity, she bails him out of night court and takes him to her home, where he kills himself, precipitating a scandal that ruins her career and her marriage. She retires to the south of France, where she is finally reconciled with her husband.

    Aside from the basic situation, the only thing the two films have in common is a line which Selznick had liked in the 1932 film. As the actress takes leave of the director just before his suicide, he calls to her and she turns, questioningly. "I just wanted to hear you speak again," he says. Changed to "I just wanted to take another look at you," this was used twice in A Star Is Born, once at the end of Esther and Maine's first meeting and then again just before his fateful swim.
    It took Wellman fifty-two scenes, two montages and i 1o minutes to tell this quintessential tale of Hollywood tragedy. The enlightened attitude with which it treated movie-making and movie stars, the lavish Technicolor production, the wit and style of the script and direction, the bittersweet flavor of the romance, and the unusual tragic ending all coalesced into a classic heartbreak drama. The film had served (ironically, in viewing the remake) as a comeback vehicle for Janet Gaynor, whose career had waned in the early 1930s. One of the biggest stars of the late silent period, Gaynor was lovely, sweet, wholesome, and an actress of depth and sensitivity. She had won an Oscar* for her performances in Seventh Heaven (the first Academy Award ever given to an actress); Street Angel, in which she co-starred with Charles Farrell; and the F. W. Murnau masterpiece Sunrise. Gaynor had successfully made the transition to sound, but the type of films she made and the parts in which she was cast did not keep up with public taste, and by 1935 she was seriously considering retiring from films. Selznick, however, knew her personally and felt that her true personality had never been revealed to moviegoers. She was charming, funny, and sophisticated-qualities germane to the success of the character of Esther Blodgett; combined with Gaynor's air of innocence and vulnerability, they made her performance in the film one of her most memorable and beloved. She was nominated for an Academy Award but lost to Luise Rainer in The Good Earth. (The other nominees were Irene Dunne for The Awful Truth, Greta Garbo for Camille, and Barbara Stanwyck for Stella Dallas.) Still, A Star Is Born had accomplished one of Selznick's objectives: it revitalized Gaynor's career and made her a star all over again.

    Because of the picture's constant theatrical circulation all during the
forties, two presentations on the Lux Radio Theatre, and finally as a staple
of early television, the tale was familiar to almost two generations of
moviegoers. Hart's task was to preserve the potent appeal of this Hollywood
myth while making it viable for a modern-day audience. The problem was
complicated by the necessity of rewriting the part of Esther/Vicki to suit
Judy Garland. The original film had walked a delicate dramatic path in
interweaving the lives and careers of Vicki and Norman Maine. In emphasizing the "star power" of Lester/Garland, more screen time would have
to be devoted to her, thus altering the careful balance of the original. Hart
later recalled: "It was a difficult story to do because the original was so
famous and when you tamper with the original, you're inviting all sorts of
unfavorable criticism. It had to be changed because I had to say new things
about Hollywood-which is quite a feat in itself as the subject has been
worn pretty thin. The attitude of the original was more naive because it
was made in the days when there was a more wide-eyed feeling about the
movies ... (and) the emphasis had to be shifted to the woman, rather than
the original emphasis on the Fredric March character. Add to that the
necessity of making this a