Short Take: A Star Is Born (1954)

The 1954 version of A Star Is Born, directed by George Cukor, appears to have one overarching ambition: to establish Judy Garland as the greatest all-around performer in the history of movies. It succeeds, and then some. Garland plays an up-and-coming singer and actress who becomes romantically involved with a Hollywood leading man (James Mason). But as her career takes off, his goes into decline, and he descends further and further into alcoholism. Garland is fully up for the romantic-comedy tone of the first half, and she delivers an emotionally raw intensity that perfectly suits the second half's soapiness. But the glory of any Garland performance is the musical numbers, and these are a grand slam. Her sweet, rich, powerhouse voice has one of its best showcases with the torch song "The Man Who Got Away," performed in an early nightclub scene. There's the the seven-song medley "Born in a Trunk," a spectacular pastiche of the movie-musical set pieces of the period. The most charming number is the light, slapstick "Someone at Last," performed in the characters' living room after they are married. The most wrenching is "Lose That Long Face," where the film's music and melodrama collide. It's the showiest dramatic scene Garland has ever played. She's a dynamo, and James Mason must have been especially inspired, as the performance he turns in is perhaps the finest work of his career. He effortlessly conveys his character's matinee-idol charm, and he fully catches a viewer up in the fellow's self-destructive pathos. The two actors live up to the large scale of the production, and George Cukor brilliantly orchestrates every element. The performances, Gene Allen's production design, Sam Leavitt's color cinematography--oh, and everything else--are all superb, and all of a piece. The cast also includes Jack Carson, Charles Bickford, and Tommy Noonan. The songs outside of the "Born in a Trunk" medley are by Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin. The screenplay, credited to Moss Hart (there were several uncredited hands), is based on the one for the original 1937 non-musical film, which was written by William Wellman, Robert Carson, Dorothy Parker, and Alan Campbell. There are two other film versions: a 1976 production, directed by Frank Pierson, with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, and a 2018 one, starring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga, directed by Cooper.