The Star

Watching The Star I wondered how close to him it all was for Davis. There's a scene in the end where it gets meta and you can almost see Davis as Margaret hearing the script storyline that she is offered. Regardless, this is a fine film and it has Davis working with her usual spark and unlikeable presence. But like always, she knows how to make you root for her. I also think the running time, while seems short, is pretty much the perfect length for the story the film is trying to tell. This is a problem I thought Mr. Skeffington had, way too long for its own good. So yeah, if you want to seek out all of Davis this is still a fine entry and a required one really.

Davis (in an Oscar-nominated performance) plays Margaret Elliot as washed out has been actress. She was big once but now can't get a job. She's divorced and penniless but refuses to give up hope for one more acting job. She also has a man who loves her (Sterling Hayden) and is trying to get her to face reality. There's also a scene or two of Margaret with her daughter played by an impossibly young Natalie Wood.

It's a depressing movie of course but you can't stop watching. It's short (89 minutes) and moves quickly. It does have a ridiculously false but happy ending that had me getting misty-eyed. This is worth seeing for Davis alone. She's just great. She also gleefully said she modeled her character after Joan Crawford! OUCH!

During "The Star," Bette Davis commands the lead as Margaret Elliott, a Hollywood, Oscar-winning has been. The show is about handsome Jim Johannson (Sterling Hayden), a boat mechanic & fan of Elliott's, teaching her that there's more to life than being an actor. The adorable adolescent, Natalie Wood, plays Gretchen, Elliot's beloved daughter.

Elliot can't deal with the mid-life transition off the set & into retirement. She's so resentful she becomes a drunkard. During a classic scene, Davis uses one of her own Oscars, propped on the dashboard of Elliot's car & heads for the posh homes of the stars in Beverly Hills saying, "Come on, Oscar, let's you & me go get drunk!" Davis' portrayal of a fallen actor makes her seem older than she actually was. Of all the characters Davis embodied, I think she got Margaret Elliot spot-on! After she gives a faux sight-seeing tour of the stars' mansions to no one while drunk & driving, she lands in jail. That's when Jim bails her out, then takes her to his home on the ocean docks. The rest of the story is worth knowing.

Interestingly, this 1952 performance earned Davis her 9th Oscar nomination at 44yo. She was anything but washed up like the character she played, with 43 years of acting in movies & many more nominations & awards left to go. Davis was less than half-way into her acting career!

Bette Davis went to 20th Century Fox and scored a hit in this film "The Star:" which had the tag line "Only the Star Of Stars" Could have starred in this film.

Bette Davis plays a washed up movie star hankering for a comeback. Bette has to take a screen test for a supporting role and it goes badly

Bette says "Bless You" twice in this drama and as we may all know that was what Joan Crawford often said. So maybe Bette was giving a jab below the belt to Crawford?

Bette got an Oscar nomination and deservedly so. A Great Star.

Natalie Wood and Sterling Hayden give great support.

... because the plot is about an aging actress in an industry that worships youth who can no longer get parts of any kind, whose friends have abandoned her, and who is so broke she is about to be kicked out of her small apartment - Bette Davis as Margaret Elliot. I guess I'd also mention that her star has fallen so far that she can't even get arrested in this town (Hollywood), but alas she can, as she gets arrested for driving drunk and getting into a one car accident, all while lugging her Oscar around.

Jim Johannsen (Sterling Hayden) bails her out of jail. He does this partly because she gave him a break in his very short movie career before he moved on to a boat building business of his own, partly because he is kind, partly because he is still in love with her although he is noticeably younger than she is. She actually does get a shot at another part - a supporting role playing the part of the much older sister of the actual lead actress. The test was just a formality, but Margaret messes it up by trying to play the middle aged scrub woman role she has as sexy rather than disheveled and dispirited as directed. When she asks to see her screen test she sees how ridiculous it looks and, as a result, has an epiphany. You'll have to watch and find out just what that epiphany is.

This film is supposedly based loosely on the late career of Joan Crawford, although she got parts - and good ones - past the date of the release of this film. Not to be unkind, but Joan Crawford aged quite well where here, Bette Davis actually looks every day of her 44 years. It's interesting to see Sterling Hayden play a strong yet sensitive guy. There is a good role here for Natalie Wood as Davis' adoring teen daughter.

One thing that the film ignores, probably because it had been written several years before, is that by 1952 actors and actresses whose stars were no longer on the ascent or who maybe were never that well known in the first place were getting steady work on television. In fact, both Bette Davis and Joan Crawford started getting regular appearances on television starting in the 1950s.