Comparing All Four Versions Of A Star Is Born

There are four movies called A Star is Born, all roughly following the same plot (here be spoilers):

An aging, alcoholic, male entertainer is just beginning to exceed the tolerance people allow him for his talent with the ridicule and distress he engenders with his destructive, obnoxious antics. Just at this time, he hears or sees a young woman with talent languishing in a small-time position and takes it upon himself to short-list her into fame and fortune. She initially resists, but falls for him and takes the opportunity. She becomes absorbed into the soulless hit-making factory of Hollywood and becomes wildly successful,, while the world turns away from him. They marry and move in together. He runs out of opportunities and people call him a has-been, in so many words; he even ends up taking phone calls or interview requests for her from people who don't even know him. She wins an award (Oscar or Grammy) and he shows up late to the ceremony and interrupts her speech with some kind of drunken scandalous antic. She asks her manager to give him some pity opportunities; he turns them down. She resolves (more or less) to quit the business in order to live a smaller life with him, since she realizes that he can't handle the situation as is (with her being successful and him not), but he discovers this and decides to kill himself in order to prevent this. She spends some time in self-pity. In the end, she publicly performs or says something to acknowledge his importance to her.

1937: Leads are Esther Victoria Blodgett aka Vivki Lester (Janet Gaynor) and Norman Maine (Fredric March). This is a fine film, although very much a period piece of the time it was made, so there are some rushed dialog, odd pauses, harsh sound, and bad lighting. The plot is well-paced and scripted. The actors are both likeable. The main actors recite some of their speeches woodenly but passionately at the camera (or just off to the left) and there are some hysterics. Everyone else talks like a 1930s gangster.

In this version, the main characters are actors. Esther starts on a farm and travels to Hollywood but meets rejection. Norman gets her into his pictures when he sees her waitressing. Someone directly and quite rudely tells Norman that he is washed up. Norman punches him, so Vicki has to bail Norman out of the police station. Norman overhears Vicki planning to give up her career, so Norman walks into the ocean  Vicki ends the movie by looking at the camera and calling herself Mrs. Norman Maine.

This is a fine and memorable movie, worthy of being redone.

1954: 17 years later. Esther Blodgett aka Vicki Lester (Judy Garland) and Norman Maine (James Mason). In this version, the main characters are actors / vaudeville performers singes and dancers. Norman finds Esther singing in a nightclub. The movie is punctuated with several musical performances that, I suppose, were entertaining to audiences of the 1950s. Anyway, they look a lot like bad musicals from that era, like the Road movies and so forth.

I have a hard time conveying the contempt I have for this film. It's mostly in two parts.

Firstly, the acting is always fairly terrible, but sometimes it rises to the level of horrifically terrible. The actors stare at the screen in horror with long pauses, bite their knuckles, fling themselves onto furniture, and weep or shout like idiots.

But mostly, James Mason's Norman grabs, yanks, hurls, pushes, interrupts, orders, and otherwise abuses Judy Garland's Esther throughout the whole movie, yet the movie conveys this as rough but charming. It's sickening. By the time she falls in love with Norman, he has done nothing but pull her through doors, push her into cars and rooms, and otherwise abuse her, but all she can think of is how he takes her breath away (duh, by never letting her think or talk). Most of the abuse comes from Norman, but some of it comes from other people, too. She is a rag doll. It's jaw-droppingly painful to watch. The very little agency she has in the film is to sing and dance, or to wail and cry over how sad it is that she can't do anything for Norman ("She can't! She can't! She can't! Ohhhhh aaahhhh aaahhhh!")

Norman overhears the fateful conversation and is (overacting) horrified and drowns himself. After getting yelled out and yanked by a few more people, Vicki ends the movie by looking at the camera and calling herself Mrs. Norman Maine. And then ...

1976: 22 years later. Esther Hoffman (Barbra Streisand) and John Norman Howard (Kris Kristofferson). This movie is thankfully a step up from the previous one. It's diverges a bit from the others as to how it fills in the plot scenes. The main characters are now singers. The movie starts with a big crowd and drunken stage performance.

They took the main outline of the plot and decided that everyone already knows it, so the movie is about 50% plot and 50% Barbra and Kris being playful and making love. It's very 1970s, not only the hair styles and crowd scenes, motorcycle and car driving, but with the casual flashes of nudity and almost relaxed attitude toward infidelity (it's an insult, but apparently an easily forgivable one). And now we have cocaine, not just alcohol.

The result is somewhat loosely plotted and kind of boring. We skip all the scenes of how she turns into a star (she just does, in a 2 minute montage), we skip her changing her name (she pooh-poohs that idea after being asked by a reporter), we skip the courtroom bailout scene, and we skip most of the conversation that is supposed to lead to his death. She yells at him once for sleeping around, saying that she doesn't want him to drag her down, and he races off into the desert and dies (whether by accident or deliberately is left a bit vague). She ends the movie by singling another song, no name assertion.

It's not only that neither of the main characters are likeable. It's that they don't have much in the way of character to like or to not like. John is kind of sympathetic. Esther is kind of ... well, she's just Barbra Streisand.

But Barbra can sing, and she sings fine. So fine that you kind of wonder how it is that she was languishing in obscurity to begin with.

This is not worth watching, but the soundtrack is lovely. And then ...

2018: 38 years later. Ally (Lady Gaga) and Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper). The main characters are singers. The movie starts pretty similarly to the 1973 one (with better camera-work and sound), but the alcoholism is more subtle.

This one is, by far, the best one, with incredible performances, scripting, directing, and shooting. The music is amazing, and Lady Gaga is a great singer (okay, Barbra was better, but that's a given for just about anyone). Possibly the only issue I have is the rushed scenes leading up to his decision to kill himself. Ally only half-heartedly tries to throw Jackson some pity-bones (she says one quick sentence about not go on tour without him). The scene that struck me as most wrong was that someone flat out says to Jackson that he is a drag on her career and should disappear, rather than him overhearing it (like he does in the first two movies). It's not that this couldn't or wouldn't happen, it's just a less sympathetic way to depict it happening.

Jackson hangs himself instead of drowning. And Ally ends by introducing herself as Ally Maine, and then she sings a final song while she looks directly into the camera.

Bradley and Lady, as well as everyone else, do a great job of pacing and acting. They are likeable and tragic. The songs are pretty great, too. And the story is, apparently, timeless.