A Star Is Born (1937)
A small-town girl comes to Hollywood determined to become a star and finds both love and ruin with Norman Maine, a fading matinee idol whose alcoholism accelerates as her career eclipses his.
Produced by David O. Selznick in early three-strip Technicolor, A Star Is Born set the template — and supplied the closing line, “This is Mrs. Norman Maine” — for every remake and knockoff Hollywood has made about itself since.
Background
This 1937 version of A Star Is Born was produced by David O. Selznick in early three-strip Technicolor, a relatively new and expensive process at the time, and it set the basic template that every later version of the story, including the well-known 1954, 1976, and 2018 remakes, would follow in broad outline: a rising actress finds love and professional success just as her older, more established partner’s career and personal life fall apart.
What to watch for
Watch for Fredric March’s performance as the fading matinee idol Norman Maine, whose alcoholism accelerates as Janet Gaynor’s character’s own star rises, and for the film’s famous closing line, “This is Mrs. Norman Maine,” which has been quoted or echoed in nearly every version made since. Because this film established so much of the story’s basic shape, it is worth watching as the origin point for a plot that Hollywood has returned to repeatedly across nearly a century.
