She is a fresh-faced young star, rising in the Hollywood firmament. He is a downwardly-mobile leading man whose fondness for the bottle has ruined his career. The story is one of love and self-sacrifice within this most selfish of all industries.
Roughly once every 20 years, Hollywood remakes this paean to its own heartless glamour. James Mason and Judy Garland starred in the 50's version, and Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson on the 70's rendition, but for sheer emotional impact, this 1937 original is still the best.
Technicolor was taking its first faltering steps with this picture, and if the colour is a little sketchy in the first half this is forgiveable. Dorothy Parker had a major hand in the screenplay, and in this movie about Hollywood artifice and the illusion of cinema, intelligent use is made of an actual script at the beginning and end, showing dialogue and screen directions.
Janet Gaynor is very appealing as Esther Blodgett, the naive North Dakota country girl who makes it as Vicki Lester, megastar. She combines a wholesome girl-next-door charm with a strong talent for humour, running through a string of funny voices in the Acme Trucking Co sequence, and providing good impersonations of Garbo, Hepburn and Mae West.
The leading man who falls for her gamine innocence, Norman Maine, is played with dignity by Frederic March. He does the drunk scenes realistically without hamming it up, and conveys the pain of a man who knows he is hurting the woman that he loves.
Hollywood's celebration of itself extends beyond the self-referential use of a shooting script. We see planes, trains and buses bringing wannabe's to Hollywood (and this is where the Technicolor really comes into its own). The pavement outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre features prominently, and the screen test captures the bustle of the assembly-line studio mentality. Vicki jumps at the crack of the clapper-board, as if the Hollywood monster is to be feared. William Wellman's direction contains knowing ironic elements, such as the 'wipe' which imitates the closing elevator doors.
The stark shadow half-across Esther's face in the first love scene is dramatic, and symbolises the tenuous nature of the relationship, with Esther in awe of the big star while Norman is all too aware of his fading powers. The scene in the night court is excellent in its restrained realism, as a line of drunken derelicts is paraded before the magistrate.
One small fault that came to my attention is the clumsy edit over the end of a reel as Vicki removes her puritan mobcap. Other than that, the film is a flawless and accomplished piece of work.
In the end, after the great 'sunset over the ocean' scene, Vicki decides to go on, rather than be that thing that no American can ever agree to being - a 'quitter'.
Roughly once every 20 years, Hollywood remakes this paean to its own heartless glamour. James Mason and Judy Garland starred in the 50's version, and Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson on the 70's rendition, but for sheer emotional impact, this 1937 original is still the best.
Technicolor was taking its first faltering steps with this picture, and if the colour is a little sketchy in the first half this is forgiveable. Dorothy Parker had a major hand in the screenplay, and in this movie about Hollywood artifice and the illusion of cinema, intelligent use is made of an actual script at the beginning and end, showing dialogue and screen directions.
Janet Gaynor is very appealing as Esther Blodgett, the naive North Dakota country girl who makes it as Vicki Lester, megastar. She combines a wholesome girl-next-door charm with a strong talent for humour, running through a string of funny voices in the Acme Trucking Co sequence, and providing good impersonations of Garbo, Hepburn and Mae West.
The leading man who falls for her gamine innocence, Norman Maine, is played with dignity by Frederic March. He does the drunk scenes realistically without hamming it up, and conveys the pain of a man who knows he is hurting the woman that he loves.
Hollywood's celebration of itself extends beyond the self-referential use of a shooting script. We see planes, trains and buses bringing wannabe's to Hollywood (and this is where the Technicolor really comes into its own). The pavement outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre features prominently, and the screen test captures the bustle of the assembly-line studio mentality. Vicki jumps at the crack of the clapper-board, as if the Hollywood monster is to be feared. William Wellman's direction contains knowing ironic elements, such as the 'wipe' which imitates the closing elevator doors.
The stark shadow half-across Esther's face in the first love scene is dramatic, and symbolises the tenuous nature of the relationship, with Esther in awe of the big star while Norman is all too aware of his fading powers. The scene in the night court is excellent in its restrained realism, as a line of drunken derelicts is paraded before the magistrate.
One small fault that came to my attention is the clumsy edit over the end of a reel as Vicki removes her puritan mobcap. Other than that, the film is a flawless and accomplished piece of work.
In the end, after the great 'sunset over the ocean' scene, Vicki decides to go on, rather than be that thing that no American can ever agree to being - a 'quitter'.