Review of A Star Is Born (1954) by Dominic S — 04 Aug 2013

This is such a beautiful and sad love story and it is the best musical I've seen since Guys and Dolls.

Judy Garland is incredible in this outstanding film and it is such a shame that she did not win the Academy award. That's one of things I hate, when I watch a great movie and I'm won over by a certain performance and I'm convinced that they did win some big award for it but then it turns out they didn't. I guess I have to watch The Country Girl so I can watch Grace Kelly's award-winning performance.

Everything about Judy Garland's character in this film was made to win the Oscar. She truly captured all the emotions and this role goes down as one of her best, if not her best, performances of her life.

Judy Garland is such an incredible singer and this role was made for her.

James Mason was also good in this movie and I'm not surprised that he got an Oscar nomination as well.

Judy Garland plays Esther, a striving young talent who dreams of making it big in Hollywood with her singing talent. She meets Norman, an alcoholic actor whose career is slowly drifting away. Norman protests of how talented Esther is to her and she agrees to quit her job as a small singer in a band to take part in a screen test and get a job in Hollywood, as Norman said, being in the band is a waste of her talent.

That is just the first half hour of the film, the next two hours is even better as Esther becomes such a huge success as she starts in a small commercial, a few roles, and a major musical film which her performance is awarded the Oscar.

All the while Esther and Norman's love for each other grows as well as Esther's time spent filming in the studio and Norman's drinking addiction.

This emotional drama/musical fits the time that it was created beautifully and the George Cukor captivates his audience with his direction amazingly.

I got the chance to see the first-order version. The version with more footage, extra images, and more to the story and the use of those photographs and the extra audio was superb cinematically.

The cinematic achievement truly lives as one of the best musicals of all time and obviously a great Hollywood classic.

A Star is Born, I give you a 100%.