A young woman comes to Hollywood with dreams of stardom, but achieves them only with the help of an alcoholic leading man whose best days are behind him.
A nightclub performer hires a naive chorus girl to become his new dance partner to make his former partner jealous and to prove he can make any partner a star.
Norman Maine, a movie star whose career is on the wane, meets showgirl Esther Blodgett when he drunkenly stumbles into her act one night. A friendship develops, then blossoms into romance before tensions increase as Esther's career takes off while Norman's continues to plummet.Written by
Col Needham <col@imdb.com>
The film's completion was particularly joyous for Judy Garland, who had just learned that she was pregnant for the third time. See more »
Goofs
At the Sneak Preview at the Marcopia Theatre, the first sequence of the Born in a Trunk number, which Garland and Mason are apparently watching from the balcony, is projected in 16:9 ratio, but the rest of the number, as viewed by members of the film audience, in the film itself, is in CinemaScope in the much wider 2.55:1 wide screen ratio. See more »
Quotes
Matt Libby:
[after being introduced to Esther]
Esther Blodgett? Well, we'll do something about that. Anyway, nice to have you with us.
See more »
In a career of classic performances this may be Judy Garland's best role and one that certainly uses her many talents to the hilt. James Mason gives an Oscar caliber performance as well and I believe in almost any other year that he wasn't up against Brando's "On the Waterfront" performance he would and should have won.
This George Cukor film features gorgeous color and beautiful cinematography, but does suffer from choppy editing that may be the result of restored footage. The project to restore over an hour of missing footage scrapped by the producers after the original length was in excess of four and a half hours may have been done with the best intentions, but is still incomplete and leaves the film disjointed and obviously lacking. I certainly wish the original footage was never scrapped, but this spotty attempt at restoration makes you feel like your watching more of a project than a classic film. Sometimes less is more and definitely in this case.
Whatever you do make sure you see the widescreen version of this film that was originally shot in Cinemascope or you will only see about a third of the actual picture and I assure you, you won't want to miss any of it.
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In a career of classic performances this may be Judy Garland's best role and one that certainly uses her many talents to the hilt. James Mason gives an Oscar caliber performance as well and I believe in almost any other year that he wasn't up against Brando's "On the Waterfront" performance he would and should have won.
This George Cukor film features gorgeous color and beautiful cinematography, but does suffer from choppy editing that may be the result of restored footage. The project to restore over an hour of missing footage scrapped by the producers after the original length was in excess of four and a half hours may have been done with the best intentions, but is still incomplete and leaves the film disjointed and obviously lacking. I certainly wish the original footage was never scrapped, but this spotty attempt at restoration makes you feel like your watching more of a project than a classic film. Sometimes less is more and definitely in this case.
Whatever you do make sure you see the widescreen version of this film that was originally shot in Cinemascope or you will only see about a third of the actual picture and I assure you, you won't want to miss any of it.