È nata una stella

I believe this as one of the most beautiful pictures I have ever seen. I enjoyed the story, the dialog and above all I enjoyed the atmosphere and the actors. All of them are great but to me Fredric March is outstanding.

Norman/Alfred is a wonderful character: frail, undignified, touchy, weak and able to love Vicki/Esther so much, with all his heart.

Fredric March brings all of it on the screen, providing one of his best performances here.

If you would like to become an actor, I believe you should watch this movie and Mr. March's way of acting. Pay attention to his eyes, his hands, his face and his moves, especially when he interrupts his wife thanking everybody for the Oscar she got and claims he deserves three statues for the worse performances.

He is overcome by himself and starts dying. I just shivered.

To me, this version can't be compared to its remakes. The allure and the fascination of Hollywood have been perfectly represented here, together with an unpleasant and creepy feeling of emptiness.

Fredric March gave a magnificent performance, probably the best of his career, as Norman Maine, the actor whose career is in the descendant as that of his wife, Vikki Lester, is in the ascendant in this, the first 'official' version of "A Star is Born", (the 1932 film "What Price Hollywood" roughly told the same story). March displays just the right degree of brashness, of knowingness, and a combination of ego and a real actor's almost complete lack of ego. It's a miraculous piece of work.

As Lester, Janet Gaynor is touchingly blank but the star quality she is meant to display seems conspicuously absent; (in the 1954 musical remake Judy Garland was almost too much a star). It seems inconceivable that she could eclipse March on screen (even with his drinking). If Lester is a star and possibly a great actress Gaynor keeps the secret to herself.

The script for this version was partly written by Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell and it shows. It's an acerbic and, at times, savage movie about the movies, quite cynical for a major studio picture of it's day. It is very well directed by William Wellman who draws first-rate performances from the supporting cast, in particular Lionel Stander as a heartless, slime-ball studio hack. This remains the best of the three versions to come thus far.

'' Grandmother Lettie: Esther, everyone in this world who has ever dreamed about better things has been laughed at, don't you know that? But there's a difference between dreaming and doing. The dreamers just sit around and moon about how wonderful it would be if only things were different. And the years roll on and by and by they grow and they forget everything, even about their dreams. Oh yes, you want to be somebody, but you want it to be easy. Oh you modern girls give me a pain! ''

These lines say it all. This story is about our struggle to fulfill our dreams and the sacrifices we have to make for them. This is about how we can reach the unreachable by fighting for it, not by sitting on the sidelines watching it all fade away in oblivion. This is about the cruelty of love, making us vulnerable and weak. Great themes that'll never get old. Of course other flicks had the same themes, but this one really shows the pain and the effort that has to be put in it to fulfill any dream.

I really liked this movie for its ironic vision on fame and how it alters the personality of the stars in a negative way. We see a man getting pushed aside because of his own destructive behavior and attitude. Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan,Amy Whinehouse, they weren't the first stars that went down in oblivion and they most certainly won't be the last ones. Those who want to survive in the cruel world of the showbiz must fight and stay clean from booze and other addictions. Only the strong survive! ( and that most certainly also applies for mere mortals as ourselves! )

A young country girl named Ester Blodgett (Janet Gaynor) arrives in Hollywood filled with dreams of becoming a famous movie starlet. However, she gets nowhere until she's noticed by famous movie star Norman Maine (Fredric March), a performer on his way down in terms of popular appeal. The two fall in love but just as Ester's star, under the stage name Vicki Lester begins to rise, Maine's begins to fade.

The best thing about this film is the performance given by Fredric March as actor Norman Maine. He nails the inner emotional turmoil going on inside his character and makes him always sympathetic to the viewer even as Maine falls in and out of sobriety. It's Maine's character that proves most interesting to the viewer here as March completely steals the film away from star Janet Gaynor.

Gaynor doesn't prove quite as appealing or convincing in her lead role as Ester Blodgett/Vicki Lester and honestly it's hard to see why the public should favor her so. Maybe this was to symbolize the fickleness of the public in that they should prefer a pretty new face over a talented older one. Who knows? Nevertheless Gaynor just doesn't ever prove as appealing here in her role as she should.

This early version of "A Star is Born" is well-performed by a good cast, and an interesting story. The basic idea is fairly simple, but filled with potential, and it is done skillfully.

Janet Gaynor and Frederic March work very well as a Hollywood couple whose careers are headed in different directions, with March's performance being especially good. The rest of the cast rounds out the picture nicely with good performances of their own. While the inside look at Hollywood is interesting in its own right, the heart of the story is the way that the couple's marriage and relationships are affected by her career taking off at the same time that his is crashing. It's the kind of story that only works with believable characters, careful writing, and convincing acting, and all of those are present here.

While overshadowed by the lavish 50's remake, this earlier version is still quite worthwhile in its own right.