• Most famous now for being the first unofficial of the A Star is Born films
  • Stars Constance Bennett who is very good, another Cukor and Selznick picture—and it’s pre-code so some of the high Hollywood living is a bit more raunchy than later 30’s films and Bennett’s outfits show a lot
  • Cukor passed on the 37’ remake but did the 1954 version with Judy Garland and James Mason- pretty easily the strongest version
  • There’s a nice soft dissolve opening that finishes by pulling back from a close-up
  • Clark Gable in magazine and mentioned again in text, Garbo impression- very 1930’s Hollywood self-referential and pop referential
  • Restaurant Brown Derby scene with executives on the phone (at the table) talking box office
  • A great shot going from outside Lowell Sherman’s mansion, moves in, cuts, then a tracking shot in on him hungover in bed
  • The narrative is different than A Star is Born in some ways. The drunk here who the lead female sticks by is the director (Lowell Sherman who is good here- died of pneumonia in 1934)
  • The camera floats in as she visits a movie set for the first time in awe- a nice shot/sequence—there’s a bit of a Trader Horn documentary going on here- like this is a Hollywood behind-the-scene insider’s look
  • Formally sound- many transitions are bounced off of newspaper and trade magazine/newspaper clips and tabloid headlines
  • Again, pre-code—Bennett has her body out here
  • Sad and sobering—the scene at the end with Lowell Sherman—withered up from alcoholism—sees an old picture of himself in his prime. Cukor goes for it brilliantly with the ensuing avant-garde montage to show his ruined psyche—slow-motion of him falling after that montage
  • Recommend