A Star Is Born is a 1937 American romantic drama film starring Janet
Gaynor as an aspiring Hollywood actress, and Fredric March as a
fading movie star who helps launch her career. This film was nominated for
7 Oscars including best director, actor and actress, and won for best
original story.
A contemporary review called it "a powerful human interest drama" and
"great entertainment."
A Star Is Born has been remade four times, in 1951 (a television
adaptation) with Kathleen Crowley and Conrad Nagel; in 1954 with Judy
Garland and James Mason; in 1976 with Barbra Streisand and Kris
Kristofferson; and in 2018 with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.
Plot Esther Blodgett, a farmer girl from North Dakota, arrives
in Hollywood and tries to land a job as a movie extra. She befriends Danny
(Andy Divine) who knows his way around the town. At a concert with
Danny, Esther has her first encounter with Norman Maine, an actor she
admires greatly. Norman has been a major star for years, but his
alcoholism has sent his career into a downward spiral.
With Danny’s help Esther gets a one-time waitressing job at a fancy
Hollywood party. While serving she catches Norman's eye. The next day,
he gets his longtime producer and good friend Oliver, to give her a screen
test. Impressed, Oliver gives her a contract. Love, meteoric success and
tragedy follow…
Fredric March was lauded as one of Hollywood's most versatile stars of
the 1930s and 1940s. He won an Academy Award for Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde (1931) and for The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), as well as Tony
Awards for Years Ago (1947) and Long Day's Journey into Night (1956).
March is one of only two actors, the other being Helen Hayes, to have won
both the Academy Award and the Tony Award twice.
During his career he played a number of notable roles based on stage hits
and classic novels like Design for Living (1933); Death Takes a
Holiday (1934); Les Misérables (1935); Anna Karenina (1935); Death of a
Salesman (1951); and in 1960 Inherit the Wind, in which he played a
dramatized version of famous orator and political figure William Jennings
Bryan in the Scopes trial. In the 1960s, March's film career continued with
a performance in the political thriller Seven Days in May (1964)
McLintock! is a 1963 Western comedy film, starring John
Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. The film co-stars Wayne's son Patrick
Wayne, Chill Wills, and Yvonne DeCarlo. Loosely based on William
Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew and produced by Wayne's
company, Batjac Productions.
The film is "significant because it marks the beginning of Wayne's attempt
to impose his general views, not just political ones, on his pictures. Most of
Wayne's screen work after McLintock! expresses his opinions about
education, family, economics, and even friendship.
Plot Tough cattle baron George Washington "G.W." McLintock lives as a
bachelor on his ranch. His wife, "Kate", abandoned him with no explanation
to become a socialite out East two years prior; their daughter is away
finishing college. In the town, G.W. is disliked by a local bureaucrat, and
the territorial Governor. However, he is a friend to many, including, the
General Store owner, the local ne'er-do-wells and the Comanche Indians.
Things go askew as Kate reappears and acts the shrew who somehow
needs tamimg, and as this is in play, in walks their daughter coming home
from college with a beau in tow. Things get even more complicated when
the Comanches come into town to meet the train....
Maureen O'Hara was a native Irish and naturalized American actress and
singer, who became successful in Hollywood from the 1940s through to the
1960s. She was a natural redhead who was known for playing passionate
but sensible heroines, often in Westerns and adventure films. She worked
with director John Ford and long-time friend John Wayne on numerous
projects, including Comanche Territory (1950) Rio Grande (1950); The
Quiet Man (1952), The Wings of Eagles (1957), and Big Jake (1971). Such
was her strong chemistry with Wayne that many assumed they were
married or in a relationship.
At the start of her film career after a tryout, Charles Laughton saw potential
in her, and arranged for her to co-star with him in Alfred
Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn in 1939. She moved to Hollywood the same year
to appear with him in the production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and
was given a contract by RKO Pictures.
Prior of her films with Wayne, O'Hara appeared in films such as How
Green Was My Valley (1941), The Black Swan (1942), The Spanish
Main (1945), Sinbad the Sailor (1947), the Christmas classic Miracle on
34th Street (1947)
