A Star Is Born (1937 film)

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A Star Is Born
Image:AStarisBorn1937.jpg original film poster
Directed by	William A. Wellman
Produced by	David O. Selznick
Written by	William A. Wellman Robert Carson Dorothy Parker Alan Campbell
Starring	Janet Gaynor Fredric March Adolphe Menjou
Music by	Max Steiner
Cinematography	W. Howard Greene
Distributed by	Selznick International Pictures United Artists
Release date(s)	April 20, 1937 (U.S. release)
Running time	111 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

A Star Is Born is a 1937 film produced by David O. Selznick and directed by William A. Wellman, with a script by Wellman, Robert Carson, Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell. It stars Janet Gaynor as an aspiring actress who travels to Hollywood to become a movie star. She meets an actor, played by Fredric March and they marry but soon after his career enters a downward spiral while hers flourishes. Some Hollywood theorists believe that the marriage of Barbara Stanwyck and Frank Fay was the film's real-life inspiration. It also has some similarities to the earlier film What Price Hollywood?, whose creators actually mulled suing, though never did.

Other members of the cast include Adolphe Menjou, May Robson, Andy Devine and Lionel Stander.

The film contained several inside jokes, including Gaynor's brief imitation of Katherine Hepburn and the revelation that the glamorous Norman Maine's real last name was Hinkle. (Hinkle was the real last name of silent film star Agnes Ayres).

It was filmed from October to December 1936 with an estimated budget of $1,173,639, and premiered in Los Angeles, California on April 20, 1937.

The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, winning the award for Best Screenplay. It was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (March), Best Actress (Gaynor), Best Assistant Director, and Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay. It won a special Academy Award for its technicolor cinematography for W. Howard Greene.

A Star Is Born has been remade twice, in 1954 with Judy Garland and James Mason, and in 1976 with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson. The box-office bomb Glitter heavily borrowed plot elements from this film.

The scene in the film where Menjou offers the fading star a supporting role was added at the suggestion of George Cukor, who directed the 1954 remake.