Synopsis
A movie star helps a young singer-actress find fame, even as age and alcoholism send his own career into a downward spiral.
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Cast
- Judy GarlandVicki Lester
- James MasonNorman Maine
- Jack CarsonMatt Libby
- Charles BickfordOliver Niles
- Tommy NoonanDanny McGuire
- Lucy MarlowLola Lavery
- Amanda BlakeSusan Ettinger
- Irving BaconGraves
- Hazel ShermetLibby's secretary
- James BrownGlenn Williams
Recommendations
- 100
The New York Times
Those who have blissful recollections of David O. Selznick's A Star Is Born as probably the most affecting movie ever made about Hollywood may get themselves set for a new experience that should put the former one in the shade when they see Warner Brothers' and George Cukor's remake of the seventeen-year-old film. - 100
TV Guide Magazine
Judy Garland is at her peak, pulling out all the stops, daring the gods in this dark, weighty fable of the price one pays to be at the top. - 100
The Hollywood Reporter
George Cukor's direction, briskly paced, combines heartbreaking tragedy, out-of-this-world musical entertainment and rib-splitting comedy into a coordinated whole that can only be compared for sheer cinematic know-how with Gone With the Wind. This is a picture that's worth seeing over and over again. - 90
Variety
A Star Is Born was a great 1937 moneymaker and it’s an even greater picture in its filmusical transmutation. - 90
Time Out
The acting honours belong to Mason: whether idly cruising the LA dance-halls for a new woman, sliding into alcoholism, or embarrassing everyone at an Oscar ceremony, he gives a performance which is as good as any actor is ever allowed. - 90
The New Yorker
Grandiose, emotionally charged musical version of the 1937 tear-jerker. This updated version is a terrible, fascinating orgy of self-pity and cynicism and mythmaking. - 75
Slant Magazine
Despite A Star Is Born’s musty jabs at movieland decadence in the wake of satires like Sunset Blvd. and The Bad and the Beautiful, it was the craft found in Cukor’s alternately splashy and shadowy mise-en-scène, and displayed by Mr. James Mason, that most greatly aided Mrs. Sid Luft. - 75
LarsenOnFilm
Garland and Mason don’t exactly generate sparks as a couple, and her histrionics in the dialogue scenes eventually overwhelm the picture. But early on, this has a a lot of Technicolor/CinemaScope magic.
