April 20, 1937 A Star is Born opened at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. And just in time for its eighty fifth anniversary, Warner Archive has released a wonderful new Blu ray disc of the film. Hugely successful on its release in 1937, there have been three remakes of the film since, in 1954, 1976 and 2018. But the original still holds its own against the newer versions.

 

David O. Selznick

A Star is Born was the third release from Selznick International Pictures. An independent studio established in 1935 that distributed films through United Artists. Selznick, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1902, entered the film industry, working for his father in 1923. During the late 1910s Lewis J. Selznick was a major producer in the motion picture industry. And in the early 1920s his sons, Myron and David, started working for their father. The bankruptcy of Lewis Selznick’s studio and his reversal of fortune, emotionally affected both sons. Myron’s revenge took the form of a high power talent agent, making producer’s pay dearly for talent. And David, becoming one of the biggest producers in Hollywood.

 

Going to Hollywood in 1926, David Selznick’s career took off like a rocket. Starting as an assistant story editor at M-G-M, by 1928 he joined Paramount as an assistant to B. P. Schulberg, head of production at the west coast studio.

 

In 1931 Selznick became head of production at R-K-O. During his two years there, he produced such films as A Bill of Divorcement (1932), The Animal Kingdom (1932) and King Kong (1933). One of his productions What Price Hollywood? (1932) would serve as a blue print for A Star is Born.

 

In 1933, Selznick’s father-in-law, Louis B. Mayer, lured Selznick to M-G-M, where he would have semi-autonomy running a production unit. Between 1933 and 1935 Selznick’s string of hit films continued with Dinner at Eight (1933), Manhattan Melodrama (1934), Anna Karenina (1935) and A Tale of Two Cities (1935).

But what Selznick really wanted was a studio of his own. As early as 1931 he tried to set up an independent studio in partnership with director Lewis Milestone. But at the last minute the deal fell through.

 

Selznick International Pictures

By the middle of 1935, Selznick was ready to take the plunge into independent production. Selznick finished his M-G-M career on a high note, producing A Tale of Two Cities. Once that film wrapped production, he moved down the street into the R-K-O Pathe studio. There he set up Selznick International Pictures. Millionaire John Hay “Jock” Whitney provided financial backing for Selznick. Whitney also invested in Pioneer Pictures, a studio created to produce films in the new three-color Technicolor process. Pioneer contracted with Technicolor to produce four films over two years. But their first two films, Becky Sharp (1935) and Dancing Pirate (1936) were disappointments at the box office.

 

Unlike Pioneer, Selznick’s first independent film, Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936) was a box office success. Whitney saw Selznick as the way to honor Pioneer Pictures contract to Technicolor. As a result Selznick produced his next two films in color. The Garden of Allah (1936), mostly set in the Sahara Desert was a natural for color photography.

 

But the next Selznick International film, a behind the scenes look at Hollywood, would be just fine in black and white. However, the film would be the first three-color Technicolor film to take place in a modern urban setting.

A Star is Born

By the summer of 1936 David O. Selznick was very busy. Little Lord Fauntleroy was playing at theatres, The Garden of Allah began production, and Selznick started preparations for his next film. Director William A. Wellman working in collaboration with Robert Carson brought a story outline to Selznick. It was a movie about Hollywood.  Selznick did not care for the story, which at this point was titled It Happened in Hollywood. While at R-K-O Selznick produced What Price Hollywood? in 1932. He was never fully satisfied with this backstage look at the movie industry and he did want to do another Hollywood film. But he felt the Wellman / Carson script was too much of a caricature. Wellman took the script to Selznick’s wife, Irene Mayer Selznick. She was very excited by it and convinced Selznick to go ahead with the project.

On August 6, 1936, Ralph Walker’s Film Daily column “A ‘Little’ from ‘Lots'” ran the following article concerning Selznick’s new film –

 

At this point,  Wellman and Carson finished their second draft and Selznick was possibly thinking of using British actress Merle Oberon for the lead.

 

Wellman, a director since the silent movie days, directed Wings the mega-hit that won the first Academy Award for best picture. He was a no nonsense man who brought films in on time. Other Wellman hits include, Beggars of Life (1928), The Public Enemy (1931) and Call of the Wild (1935). A Star is Born, would be Wellman’s forty fifth film and his first in Technicolor.

Just before signing with Selznick, Wellman directed Small Town Girl (1936) at M-G-M, starring Janet Gaynor. Wellman, suggested to Selznick that Gaynor would be great for the role of the aspiring actress, Esther Blodgett. In the late 1920s she was one of the most popular stars in Hollywood. And she was the recipient of the first best actress Academy Award for her work in 7th Heaven (1927), Sunrise (1927) and Street Angel (1928). But by 1936 Gaynor’s career was on the wane.

 

 

As the summer of 1936 turned into autumn, Selznick was under pressure to get started on the film. With only five Technicolor cameras in Hollywood, production had to begin no later than October 31st. By late September, Selznick hired Algonquin Round Table, alum, Dorothy Parker and her husband Alan Campbell to prepare the script.

 

 

While Parker and Campbell worked on the screen play, Selznick signed Frederic March for the role of the alcoholic movie star, Norman Maine, in the now titled A Star is Born. In the late 1930s, March was one of the most popular stars in Hollywood.

 

Originally signed by Paramount in the late 1920s, during the conversion to talkies, March, with his stage training was a hit in films. In 1932 he won a best actor Academy Award for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931). Going freelance at the expiration of his Paramount contract, March continued in a string of hits, that include Les Miserable (1935), Anna Karenina (1935) and Anthony Adverse (1936).

 

 

With the October 31st start date looming, Selznick began to line up all the members of his production team, including art director Lyle Wheeler (1905 – 1990), a graduate of USC. After graduation Wheeler found employment as a magazine artist and industrial designer. Selznick hired Wheeler in 1936 which started him on his career as an movie art director.

 

 

A Star is Born, would be Wheeler’s first film. He would go on to create the sets for Gone With the Wind (1939), Laura (1944), All About Eve (1950) and The King and I (1956) among others.

 

 

Filming started right on the October 31, 1936 deadline. It went smoothly and wrapped on December 28th, with only a few days of re-takes needed in mid-January, 1937.

 

 

 

It was obvious that A Star is Born was a hit at its premiere at the Chinese Theatre and at its New York City opening at the Radio City Music Hall, on April 22, 1937. This film had everything going for it, it was only the seventh feature film to be released in the new three-color Technicolor process. The supporting cast, which included Andy Devine, May Robson, Lionel Stander and Adolphe Menjou, were all top notch. And the two main stars gave great performances, so much so that it briefly revived Janet Gaynor’s career.

 

The Set Design

Wheeler’s work on A Star is Born really displays the fine thought he gave to his set design. Even by the mid-1930s most Americans had not embraced the modern style sticking instead to traditional furnishings for their own homes. They considered modern design somewhat decadent and for the city slicker. Wheeler uses this dichotomy of taste in his set design. Ultra modern sets are used to represent the Hollywood personalities and the studio. But for the protagonists home, it is all traditional furnishings, to make them down to earth and relatable to the majority of the movie going audience. But let’s look at how Lyle Wheeler designed the various sets to invoke character of place.

The Blodgett Farm 

This North Dakota farmhouse is definitely 30 years behind the times. Everything about it is old fashioned. Janet Gaynor’s character of Esther, longs to break away for this place of Tiffany style lamps and cast iron heater in the living room.

 

The Beach House

After Esther becomes a star and she marries Norman, they settle into their beach house out in Malibu. Unlike Norman’s bachelor home, director Casey Burke’s home and the studio, the beach house is restrained traditional in style. Here Wheeler blended Chippendale and colonial with some moderne lamps. There is exposed painted white brick and wallpaper. It is all lovely and a little dull and for the majority of 1930s audiences very relatable.

 

The Beverly Hills House

The audience never gets to see inside, Norman and Esther’s Beverly Hills house. This was one of the few location shoots used in the production of A Star is Born. The house is not moderne in style, it is typical of the Spanish style architecture in southern California, stucco with a tile roof. And being Hollywood, of course it has the obligatory swimming pool.

 

 

Casey Burke House

The first taste of Hollywood glamour in the film comes when Esther is waitressing a party at the home of fictitious director Casey Burke. Burke is played by former silent film star and ex-husband of Mary Pickford, Owen Moore (1886-1939). For these sets, Wheeler went full out with then current moderne trends in decoration. 1936 was also a turning point in style going from streamline moderne to a more relaxed country club style. So while Burke’s house has rough hewn stone columns of the country club aesthetic, there is also blonde wood furniture (also a new trend in the mid-1930s) and lots of glass block.

 

Norman Maine’s Bachelor Bedroom

Norman Maine’s bachelor digs were quite different from the house he shared with Esther. There was nothing old fashioned or traditional about his bedroom, with its tufted head board and built into the ceiling lighting. Also notable in this set is the use of wood veneer on the curved wall behind the bed. Wheeler continues his use of blonde wood for the furniture in this set, too.

 

Oliver Niles’ Bedroom

The one and only time that the audience sees this set is when Norman Maine (Fredric March) calls up his producer Oliver Niles (Adolphe Menjou) in the middle of the night. Niles, Casey Burke and Norman Maine must have used the same interior decorator, so many of the same furnishings and designs trends can be seen across all he sets. Like the same wall blonde wood side table from Casey Burke’s house, is Oliver Niles night stand. As well as the same gold telephone.

 

The Studio

For the studio sets, here is where Lyle Wheeler went full blown moderne. And where he and Selznick had a big argument over the look of one particular set. Selznick wanted the film to be as realistic depiction of Hollywood as possible, but in one instance the reality just was not attractive as Wheeler pointed out –

David and I had an absolutely huge argument about the set for the studio commissary. He wanted the original MGM commissary to be used the way it used to be, a really junky place. I said that no one in the world really knows what it looks like; I said it’s a mistake to show that piece of junk that we ate our breakfast and lunch in. He said no, that was the feeling he wanted, and I wouldn’t give in, and he said “You do it the way I want it.”

So I did, and the day before we were to shoot he came down and said, “You’re right, build the other one.” So I had already designed it, it was based on the new one that Cedric Gibbons hand designed at MGM, so I used that as the model and used a lot of glass brick, which was just then coming in, and big circle windows so that you could see people going by . . . we tore the old one down in ten minutes and you’d never believe the number of people we had in the crew that built the new one. We worked all night but we had it up and dressed the next day, ready for shooting. 

            Lyle Wheeler quoted in David O. Selznick’s Hollywood, Ronald Haver, Borzoi Books, 1982.

The Commissary

 

The Dialogue Coach’s Studio

 

Oliver Niles’ Office

This set, probably depicts the office the David O. Selznick dreamed about. It is subdued, refined and very modern. The walls are the same wood paneling that was used behind Norman Maine’s bed. There is comfy looking green velvet covered chairs and a sofa. Uplighter torchieres around the room give it a warm glow that only indirect lighting can do. Niles’ desk, with its burled wood veneer, is what every big executive in the 1930s coveted. A wonderfully modern glass lamp with a frosted shade sits prominently on the desk. And along one wall is a brand new, 1936 Philco radio bar.

 

 

A Star is Born Opens

After opening at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and the Radio City Music Hall, A Star is Born went into general release on April 24, 1937. The film was a big hit with critics and the movie audience. At the Academy Awards it received seven nominations, including best actress, best actor, best director and best picture. It won two Oscars, one for best original story and an honorary award for color photography.

 

Re-issues and Public Domain

Costing $1,173,639 it earned over $2,000,000 by the end of 1939, giving the studio a profit of $181,000. Because of the huge amount of money earned by Gone With the Wind and Rebecca, David O. Selznick had to dissolve Selznick International Pictures in 1943 for tax reasons. And with this, the rights to A Star is Born as well as several other films reverted to Jock Whitney. Whitney then sold the rights to Film Classics, Inc. for re-issue.

Film Classics Inc. re-released  A Star is Born in September of 1943. And here’s is where the trouble with the visual quality of the film begins. To make the most money it could from a six year old film, Film Classics made new color prints in Cinecolor, a cheaper alternative to Technicolor.

 

Cinecolor was a two-color process vs. the three-color photography that Technicolor offered. Because Cinecolor only used red and blue color records, the color in the release prints was compromised. There were no greens or yellow in  Cinecolor prints. Another film sold by Jock Whitney to Film Classics, Inc. was Becky Sharp, which was also re-issued in Cinecolor prints. Below are examples from a Cinecolor two-color print vs. the Technicolor restoration done by the UCLA Film and Television Archive for a comparison the color between the two systems.

With declining revenue from A Star is Born, Film Classics sold the rights to producer Edward L. Alperson who intended to remake it. Then in 1953, Alperson sold the rights to the film to Warners Bros. And with this sale the original Technicolor negative went to Warner Bros. But in 1965 Warner Bros. did not renew the copyright registration and the original version of A Star is Born fell into public domain.

 

Home Video

Because, A Star is Born fell into public domain, it meant that it could be broadcast on TV without having to pay for the rights. And when the home video industry started in the late 1970s, any video company could put it out on tape again without having to pay for rights. So the market became flooded with different VHS tapes of the film. These tapes ranged in quality from good to down right awful. Here is an example of some of the companies releasing A Star is Born to the home market.

This is where I first made my acquaintance with the film. I purchased a VHS tape of A Star is Born in 1980 for $79.95 ($279.00 in 2022). And the quality was terrible. The image was so washed out that the actor’s faces were white blobs with two dark spots where their eyes were and an occasional third dark spot when they opened their mouths to talk. Through the years I would end up buying at least nine different copies of the film in every format. From VHS to laser disc, then back to VHS when Kino International released the film copied from David O. Selznick’s personal print.

In the early 2000s Kino released it on DVD. and finally in 2012 on Blu ray.

By then I thought I was finished buying the 1937 A Star is Born. But, never say never.

 

Warner Archive Blu ray

Now the Warner Archive has released a new Blu ray, made from the original three-color Technicolor negatives. The good news is A Star is Born has never looked this good on home video. Online there have been comparisons to Warner Archive’s version to the Kino Lorber release. These comparisons are unfair. Warner Archive has access to the original negatives while Kino made their discs from a vintage Technicolor print. Here is where I can speak with a bit more knowledge than most, I know the print that Kino used. I work in film preservation at the George Eastman Museum, where David O. Selznick’s print is held. Selznick’s print was not an original 1937 print, it was made for him in 1946. And it is on British Kodak stock, so it was probably made from duplicate negatives at Technicolor’s London laboratory. This print is darker and bluer than the original release prints. Kino lightened up the image for the video master.

Now, does this new Blu ray look the way the film did to audiences in 1937, probably not. There is a misconception about the look of Technicolor films from the 1930s. During the mid to late 1930s Technicolor feature films were not overly bright with overly saturated colors. For the most part they leaned to the brown side and featured a subdued color palette. And the image on the new Blu ray is very sharp. Technicolor’s method of printing films was similar to lithography, it layered dyes on a blank strip of film using matrices to create a full color image. While Technicolor’s registration was excellent, it still can’t compare to the computer registration used to create the digital master for the Blu ray.

 

I don’t know what the Warner Brother colorists used for a color reference (Technicolor negatives are black and white with latent color records), but the 1937 Technicolor print in the George Eastman Museum’s collection looks very different from the Blu ray. I also must point out the the quality and color of vintage Technicolor prints varied, so the 1937 print I inspected is very different from Selznick’s print from 1946. And it could be very different from what was used as reference at Warner Brothers. Here are comparison frames from the 1937 print vs. the Selznick print vs. the Warner Blu ray –

 

 

So here are some final thoughts about the Warner Archive Blu ray disc of A Star is Born. Like I said earlier in this post, this is definitely the best this film has ever looked on home video. Does it replicate the look of the film in 1937, well not really. If you are a fan of the film, should you upgrade to this new Blu ray, absolutely, not only does it look fantastic, the sound is excellent and the disc comes with many extras, including the original trailer and two Lux Radio Theatre broadcasts.

 

 

Anthony & Chris (The Freakin’, Tiquen’ Guys).

 

Sources

Film Daily

Motion Picture Daily

The New York Daily News

David O. Selznick’s Hollywood