Movie Review: A Star Is Born (1937)

A drama and romance set in the world of Hollywood, A Star Is Born is the classic tale of a new starlet rising just as her husband's career descends into sad oblivion.

Encouraged by her grandmother (May Robson), Esther Blodgett (Janet Gaynor) heads from her North Dakota family farm to Hollywood, in search of her big break in the film world. She befriends struggling assistant director Danny McGuire (Andy Devine), but otherwise cannot get a foothold in the industry. She is finally noticed by star (and frequently drunk) actor Norman Maine (Fredric March), who convinces studio boss Oliver Niles (Adolphe Menjou) to give Esther a screen test. She has a simple and natural look that Niles believes will be coming into fashion, and she is signed up by the studio.

With the help of fast thinking and faster talking studio publicist Matt Libby (Lionel Stander), Esther is transformed into Vicki Lester and receives the full studio spiffing up treatment. Cast as the female lead in Norman's next picture, she is immediately acclaimed as the next big star of the movies. After a whirlwind romance Norman sobers up long enough to marry Esther. But her continued success and his descent from glory drives him back to a pattern of self-destruction that threatens to derail her career.

Directed in colour by William A. Wellman and produced by David O. Selznick, the 1937 version of A Star Is Born holds up to the test of time remarkably well. While the bloated 1954 version is more about Judy Garland's attempted comeback, the 1937 effort is a perfectly balanced drama, allowing the story, the milieu and the characters of Esther and Norman to share the spotlight.

At 1 hour and 51 minutes, Wellman delivers an efficient and rich film. There is enough investment in depth to develop Esther and Norman into real people worth caring about. The supporting characters of studio head Oliver Niles, publicist Matt Libby and assistant director Danny McGuire also receive ample screen time and help to nurture the inside Hollywood environment.

The opposite trajectories experienced by Esther and Norman anchor the film. She rockets from unknown ingenue to stardom after her first film. He descends from the top of the heap to the bottom of the bottle at a remarkable pace. They cross paths in the middle, Norman giving Esther a key career boost, Esther doing all she can to halt his slide. Business is business, and ultimately Hollywood is the dream factory where only those who connect with the public are welcome. Esther is the new darling, Norman is the has-been, and few have time or sympathy for yesterday's stars.

Both sides of Hollywood are captured in key scenes. Oliver reaches out to Norman at a key low point, offering a return path to the screen. There are traces of humanity in this town, but Norman's ego prevents him from grabbing the lifeline, or even recognizing it for what it is. In another sequence, Libby wastes no time telling Norman exactly what he thinks of him, now that Norman is washed up. The knives come out quickly when the gloss wears off.

Esther is both protagonist and observer. She is eventually swept up by the studio star-making machine, and gets to observe its inner workings. Esther brings healthy farm-grown pragmatism to her reign at the top as Vicki Lester. Having already witnessed the fleeting nature of fame, Esther will know better than most how quickly the machine can dump and trample on its own creations.

Janet Gaynor and Fredric March both do well and generally avoid melodramatics, with Gaynor in particular radiating the honest appeal of a rural girl candid about her determination to chase a far-fetched dream. Stars are born in an explosion of perseverance, but burn out with a dark whimper.

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The Movies Of Lionel Stander

All movies starring Lionel Stander and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

A Star Is Born (1937)

Once Upon A Time In The West (1968)

Boot Hill (1969)

The Cassandra Crossing (1976)

New York, New York (1977)

Terror Storm (1978)

1941 (1979)

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Movie Review: Terror Storm (1978)

A cheapo disaster / horror hybrid from Mexican schlockmeister René Cardona Jr., Terror Storm (also known as Cyclone) features horrid production values, atrocious performances, and a few former Hollywood types embarrassing themselves.

A massive storm unexpectedly wallops the Caribbean near an unnamed island. Out at sea, a plane is caught in the turbulence and crashes into the ocean. A fishing boat capsizes, and a tourist boat is stranded without power. The rescue effort is slow in coming. The survivors from the three incidents eventually converge onto the tourist boat, where water and food are running low, tensions are high, and the sharks are circling.

Cardona Jr. made a small career out of budget disaster films in the 1970s, ripping off the decade-long obsession with the genre and cobbling together Mexican / Italian / Spanish co-productions with enough funding to attract a few fading stars. Terror Storm features a sudden Caribbean storm, a plane crash, cannibalism (with crunchier details in the longer "international" version) and a late-in-the-day shark attack, all filmed using bargain-basement techniques, stock footage, and oh-so-obvious not-so-special effects.

To give credit where due, Terror Storm offers up several moral dilemmas worth mulling over, and the film's best moments are in the form of group discussions. Should a pet dog be treated with humanity and provided with precious water in dire circumstances. As the number of survivors on the tourist boat increases, the rationing of water supplies becomes an issue. And finally when cannibalism has to be considered, the topic is debated with some thoughtfulness.

But the few good moments are comprehensively swamped by the prevailing awfulness. The cyclone scenes on the island consist of detached shots of rushing water that appear to be sourced from a documentary. When extras are hit with water, mostly on the crashing plane, it is laughably obvious that they are being hosed down. And once the sharks start munching, they feast on undefined slabs of meat wrapped in white cloth, simulating the human victims. Unsuccessfully.

The dialogue is agonizing, and particularly during the on-island scenes, the words are delivered by actors with blank looks that scream for a mercy killing. Somehow, Arthur Kennedy (as a preacher), Carroll Baker (as the insufferable dog owner) and Lionel Stander (as a pompous tycoon) ended up in this mess, and all three ham it up with bewildering excitedness that does nothing to set their careers back on any sort of recovery. Needless to say, the set design is virtually non-existent. Terror Storm is a tedious exercise in waiting for the sharks to arrive and save the day.

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Movie Review: Boot Hill (1969)

A mixture of Italian artistry with western grime, Boot Hill sparkles in patches with clever editing and brash juxtapositions. A muddled story and rather limp climax take some of the shine off.

The mysterious Cat Stevens (Terence Hill) is pursued by a large posse intent on killing him for reasons never made clear. Wounded in a gunfight, he escapes and takes refuge with a travelling circus run by Mamy (Lionel Stander) and featuring trapeze acrobat Thomas (Woody Strode). When Thomas' son is killed by Cat's pursuers, Thomas and Cat team up and join forces with Hutch Bessy (Bud Spencer), Cat's partner from adventures past. The three men come to the aid of a community of miners being bullied by a corrupt tycoon and his brutal henchmen.

The third instalment in the loose trilogy that started with God Forgives...I Don't! (1967) and continued with Ace High (1968), Boot Hill was later re-released and falsely marketed as part of the more famous (and less gritty) Trinity series. In Boot Hill, Terence Hill and Bud Spencer still have an edge, with violence and ruthlessness to the fore and any attempts at comedy kept well in control. The result is more serious and closer to the original Spaghetti Western ethic.

Director Guiseppe Colizzi injects Boot Hill with sometimes stunning visual flair. Making the most out of the organized chaos that surrounds Mamy's travelling circus, complete with dwarfs, heavily made-up faces and dancing girls, Colizzi creates the best scenes by intercutting desperately joyous circus performance shots from inside the tent with life-and-death gunfights erupting on the dusty town streets. The results are brilliantly jarring.

Otherwise, Boot Hill has relatively little to offer in terms of drama and compelling plot. The entire miners-under-threat narrative is hurriedly dropped into the film and bungled in terms of building any tension, resulting in a climax that fails to captivate.

Terence Hill works on an effective serious and dangerous western persona but Bud Spencer's late appearance hardly leaves an impact. Woody Strode shines in a relatively rare opportunity as an almost leading man, his physical presence unleashed to cause some serious damage.

Boot Hill climbs about halfway up the hill, enjoys a reasonable view, but is held back by some clumsy boots.

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