This vs. 1937 version.


Has anyone seen both? I have seen neither, and I want to see them but this one is quite long and not necessarily better than the original one. How is this one compared to the 1937 version?

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In my opinion, the 1954 version is a drama with music, rather than a true musical. The situations are quite dark. The addition of music was to showcase Garland. (And are wonderful !)

In other words, you could eliminate the musical numbers, and the story of how an established star helps and unknown (while he's slipping) would still flow and hold up.

Many of the situations are slightly changed and updated, but much of the dialogue is practically lifted from the first film.

If time is your concern, I'd say watch the 1937 version. It's the framework of the 1954 version -- sans music. It may cause you to want to watch the 1954 version for comparison. I hope so.

Of course, that's my opinion. Taste is a subjective thing.

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Thanks for the feedback! I really appreciate it.

I actually want to see both films, but I will start with the 1937 version.

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I think it is good to always start with the original and work forwards. But that's just me.

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...and Janet Gaynor is adorable in it!

"What do you want me to do, draw a picture? Spell it out!"

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Or, you could start with 1932's "What Price Hollywood," which could be considered the first version of "A Star is Born." It's not a bad picture!

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The 1937 version is sweeter, more wholesome to me. Norman is a drunk, but not as mean in the 1954 version. Norman in the 1937 version is lost because his talent is waning. In this version, the alcoholic is front and center, as the industry. The movie slams the industry for its control over talent. It's grittier and meaner.
I rate this version one star above because of Judy's talent, and the songs. The 1937 version is a better story about an actor losing his craft, no longer useful. The 1954 version is a story about a destructive alcoholic, and no one will work with. Visually, it's stunning, and the still photography used in some of their pivotal scenes is creative. So the story maybe better in the 1937 version, with the two leads carrying that story. But the overall picture is better in the 1954 version.

If we can save humanity, we become the caretakers of the world

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In my view the 1954 version is much better, a more complete and rounded drama with even better performances than in the original. A poster above said this is a drama with music, not a musical, and that's absolutely correct. But the musical numbers are not only great but mesh with the plot -- they don't distract or detract from it, they're not layered on artificially. Also, the 1954 film is darker and more pointed than the 1937 version, which also has some unsuitable comic relief.

Add to this that Judy Garland was a far better and more compelling actress than Janet Gaynor, and as superb as Fredric March was I think James Mason is even better, more emotionally fragile and convincing.

To the OP, the 1937 film is very good and you should see both, in order. Which you prefer is of course a matter of personal taste. But don't be put off by the length of the remake. Longer is not necessarily worse. Just sometimes. But not here.

Visually, it's stunning, and the still photography used in some of their pivotal scenes is creative.


I'm confused, first-things-first -- you write that as if that was the way the picture was made. Of course it wasn't: the stills were inserted in the 1980s to make up for lost footage when the film was restored to its original length, although the complete soundtrack exists.

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And here I thought the director did it. Creative from that standpoint for a "talkie". I assumed stop action photography, black and white film, lol. Thanks!

Judy did outshine Janet, plus they tailored this movie for her. Unlike the 1937 version, I think. And it's much better than the Barbra Streisand remake.
I have a weakness for Mr. March, but watching today, I see not only his destructive nature, but how fragile he is. I want to see the 1937 version again to see who captured their Norman the best, taking into account the stories are different.

I agree that it's much darker, and your advice of seeing them in order.

If we can save humanity, we become the caretakers of the world

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Oh, no, what we see today is the entire, uncut film, but not quite as originally presented at its 1954 premiere. Shortly after that, the studio butchered the movie at the behest of theater owners, who wanted it cut so they could squeeze in more showings each day. The deleted film elements were thrown out or improperly stored so that many of them disappeared, although the separately stored soundtrack remained intact and complete.

Neither the director, George Cukor, nor the producer, Sid Luft (Garland's husband), nor any of the other creative people in the film, had any say in any of this. This was standard procedure at the time, when studios owned their pictures and could do what they liked with them.

When they had the grand re-opening of the restored film in I believe 1981 they had reconstructed it using the complete soundtrack and as much of the cut footage as could be located. Production stills simulating the missing scenes were inserted to convey some visual sense of what had been lost. That's why many of the "still" scenes have pieces of live footage spliced within and around them -- this was some of the cut footage that had survived. They used every bit of actual film they could find.

You're right, while the 1954 version was of course tailored for Judy Garland, the 1937 film was written without Janet Gaynor in mind, or at least not specifically tailored for her. That's one of the things I believe makes '54 all the more special -- and better. It couldn't have been made with anyone else in the lead. Also, I never get the impression in the 1937 film that that Esther Blodgett has any particular talent or certainly charisma that would make her a star -- in sharp contrast to 1954's E.B.

And let's not even mention that 1976 travesty!

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From what I learned from TCM, everybody wanted to do something for the picture, and she gave her all. You are right about the 1937 version. I never got what made her a star except they told me. But she and Mr. March played their roles very well, a used up actor and a new star.

And thank-you for the low-down on the film. It's not a new story, where they chop a film to meet needs other than artistic.

If we can save humanity, we become the caretakers of the world

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It's not a new story, where they chop a film to meet needs other than artistic.


Unhappily, you're quite right about that. In a way it's even more maddening when we have some of what was cut, but not all of it, as in this case. Sure, I'd rather have the film as it looks today, even if it's not quite "whole", than not have any of the lost soundtrack and footage at all. But it adds to the frustration -- worse I think than having none of the missing elements and just knowing they'd existed. Here, you pretty much know what you're missing.

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You're right about the facts. Live action scenes are missing, but the picture still packs a punch.

If we can save humanity, we become the caretakers of the world

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And for what it's worth, most of the missing footage is concentrated in a single portion of the film encompassing perhaps 15 or 20 minutes overall (including extant live film footage), which is better than having it continually popping in and out throughout the movie.

But aptly put -- the picture does indeed still pack a punch. To me, it gets better with each viewing. And the contrast between it and '37 grows sharper, to the latter's disadvantage.

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I agree. The 37 version tells a good story about a marriage destroyed by alchol and jealousy. But the 1954 version does thst and demonstrates violence, revenge, and as you pointed out, alludes to Norman being mentally ill. I know some people are predisposed to alcoholism. But the 1954 may have revealed some other behavioral issue, with alchol as an escape.

If we can save humanity, we become the caretakers of the world

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I don't think I pointed out that Norman was mentally ill (I think that was someone else), but he does have problems that run deeper than mere alcohol abuse. Drinking is but the most obvious symptom, while that didn't seem to be the case with Fredric March's Maine. Judy is also far more (and more appropriately) emotionally fragile than Janet Gaynor ever was. I guess it helped that in that sense Judy was living close to reality.

There's much more depth to all the characters here than in '37, including Oliver Niles (who's much more emotionally involved and more human as embodied by Charles Bickford than the way the cold Adolphe Menjou played him) and Matt Libby (much more cynical, vicious and unscrupulous as portrayed by Jack Carson than as done by Lionel Stander).

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Yes to both characters in the 1954 version. And Judy's performance was heartbreaking. She loved and wanted to let go of him for her own sanity. She didn't have to make the final choice of leaving him, because he left her.

I probably mistook the reference fragile for a symptom of some unresolved issue. Some trigger that hasn't been identified. I forget the current term for people so close to the edge but are not clearly identified by a medical diagnosis. Norman was violent when he didn't get his way. He threatened as a means to an end, to get what he wanted, like a bully. He used alchol as a bandaid sometimes, and then couldn't stop. In retrospect, when he threw the publicist into the glass, that was assault. And I never considered that Norman may have been struggling with some unresolved issues. It took your take on how fragile he was for me to get there.

If we can save humanity, we become the caretakers of the world

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I never thought too much about how Maine had a latent predilection for violence in the '54 film until we got into these discussions. Then it began standing out, especially since you don't see much of this in the March film. There, he's a drunk and can be brutal, but rather inadvertently, whereas even intoxicated Mason's Maine warns Danny that he knows himself extremely well and may start fighting at any moment. His Maine exhibits a strong, underlying anger (from frustration? lack of fulfillment? feelings of inadequacy?) whose principle outlet is drink, which also seems to enable him to fight back, since when sober he's gentle and considerate. March just seems like an alcoholic.

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I agree about the 1954 version, and your take on Macrh's character.

If we can save humanity, we become the caretakers of the world

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I'll close by adding I far prefer the way Garland utters the film's last words, "Hello everybody. This is Mrs. Norman Maine," to the way Gaynor did it. One exhibiting the expected, tear-choked emotion, the other making a triumphant statement that doesn't fit the situation at all.

Plus Janet makes this statement before a radio mic but with no real audience present, unlike the remake. In the '54 film it always struck me that as soon as Vicki coaxes out that line, the audience of industry professionals stands up and cheers -- the very same people who had rejected, turned on and exchanged vicious gossip about Norman Maine only days before. I doubt it was intended this way, but that final shot of the cheering audience always hits me as a prime example of the hypocrisy, insincerity and shallowness rampant in the business...and elevates the genuine-article Vicki Lester even more.

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How ya doin,' friend?

Only just came across this thread, and what you and f-t-f have been discussing here called to my attention one contrast to which I'd never given any thought: the "Oscar humiliation" scenes.

In both writing and performance, March's is charged with belligerence, bitterness and even hostility. The Moss Hart rewrite of the scene presents this generally more combative Norman, at that particular moment, as hurt, humbled, childlike - even ingratiating - and pitiable.

It also occurs to me that this is one of only two sequences in the entire film in which we actually see Norman in his cups (unless one counts the morning-after scene when he's whisked off to location and, as near as we can tell, is barely conscious...if that). I don't recall just now how many corresponding scenes there were in the '37 version.

But it says a lot about the entire Shrine sequence in which we get a more concentrated dose of the drunk Norman - giving full evidence of his mercurial nature and the range of ways in which his intoxication manifests itself - that it leaves an impression vivid enough to last the length of the film.



Poe! You are...avenged!

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Quite right, pal. I think the characters of both Vicki and Norman are much more fully drawn, fully realized, in the '54 characterizations than in the '37. The '37 characters are less complex, their development more "rushed", if you understand what I mean (maybe because of the film's shorter running time), and I found both less sympathetic or interesting than '54's.

Maine seems more human, vulnerable, more nuanced in the 1954 version, a combination I think of Hart's superior script and and Mason's plumbing the depths of the character more than March did. March always seemed colder than Mason, at least in this role, odd given that Mason's initial fame came from his playing cads who coldly brutalized women, then had them pining for more!

I agree with you about the significance of that Shrine sequence. I think the number of "drunk" scenes was about equal in both films, but even there, Mason's were more interesting, more fully explored.

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I've seen all 3 version and without a doubt I think the 54 version is superior due to the singing and emotional performance by JG. THe original was wonderful and in a class act of it's own. I've only seen the Striesand version a couple of times and think it's so-so. I heard Clint Eastwood was going to be directing a new version with Beyonce in the title role. Not sure if that's still in the works. Don't know how well it will work out. Either way I think the title belongs to Garland. Sadly she lost the Oscar due to her drug addiction and drinking problems. That's just my opinion, but after the way Hollyweird treated and abused her she should have been given an award just for living through the BS they put her through.

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Their both excellent with regard to acting and dramatic but the 1954 has Judy singing at her best.

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I've seen them both, plus the botched Streisand version and Cukor's original What Price Hollywood?. Why not see them for yourself, and form your own opinion?

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I love the 1937 version better. Maybe because I saw it first, I don't know... It's funnier, and the story is more complete, as we see Esther leaving home at the beginning.

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