Product Description

Janet Gaynor portrays Esther Blodgett, a starry-eyed small town girl with a dream of making it big in Hollywood. Facing only rejection, Esther chances into meeting movie idol Norman Maine played by the incomparable Fredric March.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #31176 in DVD
• Brand: Image Entertainment
• Released on: 2004-12-07
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 111 minutes

Customer Reviews

Beautiful restoration
The historical 1937 film A STAR IS BORN has remained a classic for many many years. This film's merits are many, I need not comment on them, but will make a comment on the cast. While the entire cast is outstanding, the real standout is Janet Gaynor who portrays Esther Blodgett/Vicki Lester in such a way that you can connect with her and feel her sincerity on a level that you cannot with Judy Garland in the 1954 version (and the less said about the 1970s Barbra Streisand version the better). The rest of the performances in this film are super.

This film, produced by the late great David O. Selznick and released through United Artists, is currently in the public domain and many of the numerous DVDs/VHSs of such films are of deplorable picture and sound quality. Fortunately, it is not so on this DVD release from Image. The colors are extremely bold and vibrant. There are some age-related artifacts present and graininess is visible in a number of places, however this has been kept to a minimum. I will forgive these shortcomings considering the elements used for the DVD transfer are nearly 70 years old. 3-strip Technicolor was still in its infancy in 1937 (indeed, the first feature shot entirely in this process was released only 2 years earlier), but some outstanding results were had even then. The sound, while obviously rendered in 1937 recording technology, has been nicely cleaned up for this release, allowing the musical score by the venerable Max Steiner to shine as it should.

Pass up the cheap DVDs and look only for the release from Image Entertainment, edition # ID2777IMDVD. I guarantee this will be the best DVD of A STAR IS BORN you will find.

A MOVIE ABOUT GRATITUDE
This review is about the Image release of William A. Wellman's A STAR IS BORN. No bonus, just a scene access, excellent sound and above average quality of the images.

William A. Wellman, the director of the film, earned a well-deserved Academy award in 1938 for his story whose themes were also handled in A Star Is Born and in A Star Is Born since. This movie is about the role and the impact of the images in Hollywood and about a feeling rarely treated, because not particularly expressive, in cinema : gratitude.

David O. Selznick, the producer of A STAR IS BORN, liked to take risks in his job and often worked with directors blessed by a strong artistic vision, like Alfred Hitchcock Spellbound - Criterion Collection, King Vidor Duel in the Sun or William Dieterle Portrait of Jennie. William A. Wellman could thus propose, at the beginning and at the end of the film, these famous shots of a screenplay describing what we will see or have just seen on the screen. Think about it : we're in 1937 and the French New Wave will appear more than 20 years later only !

When we watch A STAR IS BORN now, we are boggled by the quality of the dialogues of the film and the importance of the supporting roles. Lionel Stander, Andy Devine, May Robson or Adolphe Menjou have all important lines to say and are not just here to fill the screen between two apparitions of Janet Gaynor and Fredric March. Without them, there is simply no film at all.

A DVD for your library.

Part of Hollywood History
The original 1937 David O. Selznick production of A Star is Born is definitely the best version so far produced. Filmed in early Technicolor, this print is better than most, but there is still a dark cast to many of the scenes. The real good news is the sound is perfect with little or no distortion. The quality of the transfer is better than most versions I've seen, so it's worth adding to your collection if you really like this film. Janet Gaynor and Fredric March give two heart-felt performances and are supported ably by Adolph Menjou, Andy Devine, and May Robson as Gaynor's irrepressible grandmother. Tightly directed by William A. Wellman, this version is nicely paced and never bogs down the way the Judy Garland remake does.