Angelman's Place: Judy Garland

Showing posts with label Judy Garland. Show all posts

Thursday, January 08, 2026

A Star Is Born Again…and Again

Because Hollywood loves stories about itself and the pitfalls of show business, it’s not surprising that one of the most remade movies in film history is A Star Is Born. It’s the tale of a rising young talent who is discovered by a troubled superstar, and the new star skyrockets to success as the has-been fades away.

First filmed in 1932 as What Price Hollywood, starring Constance Bennett and Max Carey, it was remade in 1937 under the title A Star Is Born with Janet Gaynor and Fredric March in the leads. Judy Garland and James Mason starred in the 1954 version (produced by Garland and her then-husband Sid Luft), which added the musical element to the story and gave Judy some of her most memorable songs, including the haunting “The Man That Got Away.”

More than 20 years later, superstar Barbra Streisand brought A Star Is Born to the screen yet again, producing and starring in an updated musical version that moved the story from the movie business to the music industry, casting herself as the up-and-coming rock and roll hopeful who falls in love with an alcoholic singer on the skids, played by Kris Kristofferson.

The 1937, 2018 and 1954 versions are all well worth watching.

In 2018, Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper teamed up for yet another remake—practically a beat-by-beat retelling of the 1976 Streisand/Kristofferson version…which may be why Streisand gave it her stamp of approval. Directed by Cooper and featuring songs by Gaga collaborating with Cooper, Diane Warren and others, it was a solid hit with audiences and critics alike.

The 1976 A Star Is Born was a massive box office success, and the soundtrack album hit #1 on the Billboard charts, remaining there for six weeks. But the movie was savaged by the critics, who deemed it a failure and a poorly conceived vanity project.

It was Streisand’s first foray into an official role behind the camera, and for A Star Is Born she teamed up with an equally inexperienced collaborator, her live-in lover, former hairdresser to the stars Jon Peters. Indeed, Streisand and Peters knew next to nothing about producing a big-budget film (although Barbra had always been passionately curious about every aspect of filmmaking), and this first effort for both of them really shows that lack of experience.

Actress/Singer/Producer/Director Barbra Streisand

Producing partners and paramours Jon Peters and Barbra Streisand

But of course, both would go on to greater success. As director of Yentl, The Prince of Tides and The Mirror Has Two Faces, Streisand added another hyphenate to her job description and expanded her sphere of influence in the industry. Peters would go on to partner with Peter Guber as the presenter of megahit blockbusters including The Color Purple, Rain Man and the 1989 Batman. On his own, Peters acquired the rights to the Superman franchise and produced Superman Returns (2006) and is credited as executive producer on Man of Steel (2013).

A Star Is Born was their training ground…

Originally, Streisand and Peters wanted Elvis Presley for the role of the burnt-out rock singer, and Presley, who had been absent from the big screen for almost a decade, seriously considered the offer.

Whether the role hit a little too close to home, or domineering manager Colonel Parker refused to allow him to do it, the pairing of the two icons never materialized—but it could have been an exciting combination had Elvis been able to rise to the challenge. Indeed, it may have changed the trajectory of his own life and career.

Presley’s deep, lush baritone would have been perfect for Streisand’s new composition for the love theme, “Evergreen,” a dream duet that might have been and now we can only imagine.

It would have been a different movie with Elvis in the Kristofferson role

Perhaps Elvis was in no condition to act before the cameras anyway. Bloated and tired, he continued a grueling touring schedule and would soon pass away in the summer of 1977, looking far older than his 42 years.

Instead, they cast the handsome and charismatic rock and folk singer turned actor Kris Kristofferson, which looked like a stroke of genius. And the screen couple showed real chemistry and photographed together well—it might be said that it was the very sexy shot of the stars embracing bare-shouldered on the movie poster and album cover that sold all those tickets.

But the movie definitely does not work. Though there are several iconic moments that shine and make the film worth watching, the results are lukewarm at best.

They certainly looked good together and had screen chemistry

The soundtrack was one of the top selling albums of the decade, and in the film Streisand performs some of her most beloved songs, but the story is incoherent and hard to follow. The supporting characters are poorly drawn, wasting the talents of skilled actors like Gary Busey and director Paul Mazursky. The film lacks a coherent center, veering too far away from the human drama inherent in the original story.

The script is a mess; one suspects it was a classic case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. I wish I could read the original adaptation of the story by the brilliant team of Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, who are credited for the screenplay along with director Frank Pierson. Streisand and Peters tinkered with story and dialogue, added and cut scenes, and micromanaged every aspect of the production despite their lack of knowledge.

They even waged war against the director himself, according to Pierson in a scathing article he wrote for New West magazine before the film’s 1976 release, which added to the myth and image of Streisand as a domineering diva who must always get her own way, no matter the cost. Pierson disclosed an on-set screaming match between Kristofferson, Peters and Streisand on how a scene should be played. He painted a picture of Streisand as a control freak who wrested creative control away from him and ruined the film on final cut…perhaps just sour grapes, but the film suffered nevertheless, and the ever-ambitious Barbra Streisand is still viewed in that negative light to this day.

(Barbra herself addressed the controversy in her 2023 memoir, but seemed to place the blame for the film’s critical failure on everyone else but herself, the film’s producer.)

Sadly, Kris Kristofferson’s underwhelming performance in the final product is a particularly weak link to the 1976 A Star Is Born—likely through no fault of his own.

Barbra designed her own wardrobe—and is credited in the film

Generously baring his tanned, well-muscled chest in practically every scene (remember when the macho men used to unbutton their shirts all the way down to the navel?), Kris certainly brings the sex appeal. But the taciturn, man-of-few-words persona that charmed Ellen Burstyn in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore doesn’t come off as well in Kristofferson’s one-note portrayal of the crucial role of fading superstar Jon Norman Howard.

Jon Norman is a primitive character sketch of a reckless cowboy; Kristofferson reveals no vulnerability or even a clue as to what made him a great entertainer. Why is he an alcoholic? We never find out. In the dearth of a good script or subtext, the film literally forces the actor to rely on his good looks and sex appeal.

Despite having three songs on the soundtrack album, in the movie there’s a mystifying lack of singing from Kristofferson, a best-selling recording artist and songwriter himself, who gave Janis Joplin her final iconic hit, "Me and Bobby McGee." Why didn’t he sing more in this musical film?

Director Pierson claimed Streisand and Peters had re-edited the film to favor her performance, allegedly cutting scenes that added depth to Kristofferson's character to keep the focus on her. Only snippets of songs sung by Kristofferson made the final cut; even in the wonderful “Watch Closely Now” we are not allowed to see him perform the entire song. Yet later, Streisand sings a long, drawn-out arrangement of the song at the memorial after his character’s death.

Hampered by a threadbare script and surprisingly few musical moments in which to highlight his undeniable talent and charisma, Kristofferson’s performance seems wooden and hollow.

(By contrast, Bradley Cooper’s portrayal of the character in the 2018 film which he also directed, was better by far…though never celebrated as a singer, Cooper’s vocals are remarkable here, the duet with Gaga on “Shallow” being a particularly memorable moment.)

I don't remember this scene in the film—did they cut it?

For a movie billed as a rock film, there is a stultifying lack of real rock music here…Marilyn and Alan Bergman, Rupert Holmes, Kenny Loggins and Paul Williams are more well known as composers of light pop, standards and folk…great music, but it’s not rock and roll to me.

Predictably, the focus of the 1976 film is squarely on Barbra Streisand, the film’s titular character. An admirer of Judy Garland ever since the two worked together on television in 1963, Streisand saw the opportunity to update the story and display her versatility as an actress, musician and producer—the world’s greatest entertainer, now as a rock singer who skyrockets to fame when discovered by a fading superstar.

Suspension of disbelief is necessary to picture the already legendary Barbra Streisand as a total unknown, naive to the workings of big time show business. (Similarly, you have to do the same in the 1954 version to believe the 32-year-old Judy Garland as a starving young singer.)

As usual, Streisand, ever the pro, is strong in her role of the singing sensation Esther Hoffman and comes off best in the film, though she has little to play against, chiefly because all she basically does in the film is sing song after hit song, albeit winningly.

In the film, Barbra memorably sports a startlingly tight afro-perm that certainly changes her look, as if to exorcise the ghosts of musical dinosaurs Dolly Levi and Fanny Brice (whom she had just played a second time in Funny Lady) for good and all. Some of her fans were horrified; others applauded her contemporary new look, created by her hairstylist lover and Star Is Born coproducer Jon Peters. Streisand would keep the tight curls for a couple more years longer than she kept Peters, through her 1978 Superman album and 1979’s The Main Event. For A Star Is Born, the star also designed all her own clothes (and gave herself screen credit for it).

Did Streisand and Kristofferson have an on-set screaming match?

Barbra had previously dipped her toe into the rock genre, scoring hits with cover versions of songs like Laura Nyro’s “Stoney End” and Carole King’s “Where You Lead,” but here she is more balladeer than rock diva. “I Believe in Love,” “Everything” and “Woman in the Moon” are highlights, beautifully and excitingly performed by Streisand in the live concert sequences, but the songs are basically contemporary pop standards. Streisand composed the music for the love theme “Evergreen”; Paul Williams provided the lyrics. Both took home Oscars as it won the Best Original Song award that year.

If only the creative team had spent as much time on the dramatic possibilities as the music. Despite the physical chemistry of the two stars, you don’t understand why Esther cares so much about Jon Norman. And Esther doesn’t seem nearly as ambitious as she should be either; it’s as if she merely gets a lucky break…there is no hunger for fame or even artistic achievement. Esther hits the stage, wins over Jon Norman’s disgruntled audience, and suddenly becomes an icon.

In one of the film’s brighter moments, the Esther and Jon Norman “Evergreen” recording studio scene captures a spark of iconic movie magic (though, again, we barely get more than a phrase or two of the love theme vocalized by Kristofferson). But the story of their artistic collaboration, deepening love and tragic loss is never fully realized.

"Evergreen" won Barbra her second Oscar, this time for Best Original Song

Though it’s an essential in the Barbra Streisand filmography, and one that launched her to even greater success, this film doesn’t hold a candle to the 1937, 1954 and 2018 iterations. Of course, as a big Barbra fan, I own the DVD and have viewed it many times but always find myself fast forwarding through to the musical numbers.

For those who want to see this oft-told story really come to life, I heartily recommend the 1954 Judy Garland version.

This is an entry in the Film. Release. Repeat Blogathon hosted by the Midnite Drive-In and Hamlette's Soliloquy. Looking forward to reading all the essays over the weekend.

Friday, November 01, 2019

Another Comeback for Judy—and Renée

In reviewing Judy Garland’s 1967 Palace concert engagement, Vincent Canby called her a “sequin-sprinkled female Lazarus,” referring to the mercurial superstar’s uncanny ability to resurrect her career and revive her legend again and again. Judy Garland is back; another triumph for the comeback queen, the tabloid headlines would scream throughout the 1950s and ’60s.

Fifty years after the star’s death from an overdose of sleeping pills, the Judy Garland mythos lives on. The new biopic Judy (2019) introduces the iconic entertainer to a whole new generation of moviegoers. And in the title role, another talented star, Renée Zellweger, reinvents herself.

She has dazzled us before, but it’s been quite a while. Who can forget her sparkling turn as Roxy Hart in Chicago, her unconditionally loving support of Tom Cruise’s Jerry Maguire, or sporting that absolutely perfect British accent as Bridget Jones? She’s been nominated for three Academy Awards, and won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar as a feisty southern Civil War spitfire in Cold Mountain.

But by around 2010 Zellweger’s career had fallen on hard times, and her attempts to age gracefully (almost impossible under Hollywood’s merciless glare) with some cosmetic procedures and Botox were met with well-publicized ridicule and scorn. She fell off the A-List and seemed destined to fade away, no longer a bright new star but a cinema footnote. (Even her recent foray into Netflix as the deliciously glamorous and ruthless soap opera villainess of What/If? failed to gain her much good buzz.)

Miss Zellweger in What/If? (2019)

Renée Zellweger as Judy Garland? Quite a stretch, I thought, when I first read that the she was going to essay the part. But I was wrong. She had me at hello.

Zellweger’s remarkable performance is something to see, as the actress crafts an astonishingly detailed characterization of a lonely, troubled lady who’s down on her luck and at the end of that fabled rainbow, forced to sing for her supper and to support her family despite a serious addiction to prescription drugs.

Desperately ill, still possessing a definite but no longer reliable talent (a tracheotomy has damaged her vocal chords), Zellweger’s Judy struggles to succeed in summoning the old magic for her London audiences at the Talk of the Town supper club in December 1968.

Zellweger is simply sensational in the role, acting and singing up a storm in a tour de force that allows an operatic range of triumph and tragedy as Judy’s rollercoaster ride of a life reaches its final downward spiral.

An uncanny transformation

In the 2001 miniseries Me and My Shadows, Judy Davis (who won an Emmy Award) had lip-synched to Garland’s own voice, expertly mimicking the singer’s trademark gesticulations, but Zellweger takes the homage to the next level. Yes, she does her own singing, but that’s just the beginning. Like a skilled Method actor, the actress inhabits and embodies each song, organically finding the emotional truth of each gesture and musical phrase with an intensity that evokes the Garland magic without imitating it, finding and tuning in to the frequency of Garland like a spiritual channeler. The musical performances are nothing less than supernatural, and match the intensity of the dramatic scenes.

Thanks to Judy, I truly believe Renée Zellweger will have to make some room on her mantelpiece next to that Cold Mountain Oscar. She certainly deserves it.

As Garland’s fifth husband, the ambitious Mickey Deans, Finn Wittrock lends strong support and displays great chemistry with his costar as he tries to hustle a business deal for the fading superstar. Rufus Sewell is perfect as ex-husband Sid Luft, achieving dramatic sparks in a couple of heated exchanges with Zellweger.

Painstaking detail is paid to Garland’s makeup and costumes, including the glittering Travilla pantsuit she appropriated from the set after being fired from Valley of the Dolls as well as the Ray Aghayan gowns (cocreated by his business and life partner Bob Mackie) from The Judy Garland Show. In Judy’s clothes, Zellweger is even inspired to subtly reference Garland’s famously sloped-shoulder stance, a result of scoliosis—hence Louis B. Mayer’s cruel nickname for her—“My little hunchback.”

With Finn Wittrock as Mickey Deans

The film itself is not perfect, nor is it historically accurate. Supposedly based on Peter Quilter’s stage play End of the Rainbow, the screenplay veers pretty far from its source material to begin with, and then plays a bit fast and loose with the facts for dramatic effect. Only Garland scholars like me will quibble at the artistic license taken here. Examples: Joey and Lorna are far younger in the film at this point; they were actually both teenagers by 1968. Mickey Deans and Judy never split; he took care of her for the rest of her life—she died a few short months after the Talk of the Town engagement, in June 1969. (Deans wrote a memoir, Weep No More My Lady, chronicling their relationship and Judy’s final year.)

The relationships with her young London assistant and musical director are composite characters (well played by Jessie Buckley and Royce Pierreson) of many who had to endure Garland’s out-of-control drug addiction and fits of temperament—most vividly recounted in the 2015 memoir Judy & Liza & Robert & Freddie & David & Sue & Me by Stevie Phillips.

The male couple who welcome a lonely Judy into their home for dinner is another fanciful creation, perhaps based on the fact that Judy and Mickey Deans were indeed befriended by a gay couple who lived next door to them in their tiny mews cottage outside London. (After the Talk of the Town engagement, Deans and Garland made England their home base as they continued a mini tour of concerts in Europe to keep the wolf from the door.)

Garland was not fired from her Talk of the Town job by manager Bernard Delfont (played flawlessly by Michael Gambon)—though she did come close. But the truth of the Talk of the Town performances and key events are well dramatized here, including Judy’s often slurring performances, one of which did indeed result in the an appalling incident of having food thrown at her, the old vaudevillian cliché come true.

The dreamy flashback sequences of MGM, tyrranical Louis B. Mayer, stage mother Ethel (whom Judy always called the “real life Wicked Witch of the West”) and the filming of Wizard of Oz are not meant to be literal but seen through the veil of memory, and their themes ring true—Judy as commodity, the self-esteem crushing studio servitude to MGM—but couldn’t the producers have found a more exciting actress to play the young Judy? (By contrast, Tammy Blanchard had been stunning as the young Frances Gumm in the Judy Davis miniseries, winning the Best Supporting Actress Emmy Award.)

A faithful reproduction of a Judy Garland Show gown by Ray Aghayan

All criticism aside, the apex of the film is Zellweger, and she carries it with powerful aplomb and raw courage, owning a role that most performers would shy away from attempting—a woman believed by many to be the greatest entertainer who ever lived. Thanks to Renée, Judy lives on in yet another triumphant comeback tale, and both actresses’ stars are once again on the rise.

“Comeback? What comeback?” Judy once remarked wryly. “I’ve never been away!” And Renée can say the same thing as critics now proclaim, “Renée is back, in a big way!”

Sunday, December 10, 2017

A Funny, Talented, Beautiful Girl

Last December, I finally got to see Barbra Streisand perform live, after a lifetime of loving and idolizing her. La Streisand was truly divine, in full command of her voice and her talents, and transported us through a half century of her greatest hits, including a few of the famous Christmas songs she had not sung for decades. It was magical. (That concert tour, "The Music, The Mem'ries, The Magic" is now available on Netflix and iTunes.) Every Christmas season, I listen to that classic Christmas album, and also find time to watch the delightful movie Funny Girl (1968), which I first saw during a long-ago holiday season.

Barbra Streisand was launched as an international superstar in her film debut, the big-screen version of her 1964 Broadway triumph. The songstress was already a best-selling recording artist and a Broadway star, with several CBS television specials under her belt, but movies are an entirely different animal. The Jule Styne and Bob Merrill musical is a rags-to-riches tale of Tin Pan Alley-era entertainer Fanny Brice, whose trajectory from Henry Street in Brooklyn to the Ziegfeld Follies and international stardom failed to bring her personal happiness and fulfillment.

Barbra Streisand as Fanny Brice as Barbra Streisand...building a character and her own legend

The leap from stage to television to screen was helped by the fact that the Broadways musical’s songs were already hits by the time the film was released, thanks to Barbra’s rerecordings of “People” and “Don’t Rain on My Parade” on her already spectacularly successful record albums. Barbra herself had been introduced to TV audiences, first through guest shots on variety hours including a notable appearance on The Judy Garland Show, then through the series of CBS specials she headlined herself starting in 1965.

Directed by the great William Wyler (The Little Foxes, The Heiress), with musical numbers staged by Herbert Ross (The Turning Point, Steel Magnolias), Funny Girl gave Streisand an auspicious and audacious film debut. Barbra gets the full star treatment in this old-fashioned backstage musical romance, costumed by Oscar-winning designer Irene Sharaff and cast opposite Egypt-born heartthrob Omar Sharif, who had made international 1960s audiences swoon with his handsome presence in the epics Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago.

Photographed by veteran cameraman Harry Stradling, a favorite among actresses because he always painstakingly lit each of his leading ladies to look their very best, the Stradling treatment sets Streisand’s unusual features aglow, unveiling to the world her unique beauty in widescreen splendor.

A beautiful reflection: Director of photography Harry Stradling highlighted Streisand's unusual, unique features

In a movie year that included innovative fare including the groundbreaking sci-fi alleghory Planet of the Apes and the startling study of contemporary evil Rosemary’s Baby, Funny Girl is a throwback to showbiz biopics made 10 to 20 years earlier, including Words and Music and Love Me or Leave Me. But it works because it is a vehicle for a timeless, contemporary, new breed of star, an exciting new personality who is clearly headed for a bright future; Streisand is timeless, at home in front of the camera, and also a solid actor with remarkable comic timing, real romantic chemistry with costar Sharif and a vulnerability that registered perfectly on the movie screen if not in real life. (Tales of Streisand being a difficult diva—willful, narcissistic, exacting and perfectionistic and tough—begin right here on this picture.)

Good-looking Arab boy meets nice Jewish girl: Sharif and Streisand

The movie itself is solid and entertaining, and also contains one of Omar Sharif’s finest performances as well, as the ne’er do well Nick Arnstein (though the pairing of Jewish Barbra and the Arab Omar caused some controversy in the Middle East). Kay Medford and Walter Pidgeon lend memorable support as Mama Brice and Flo Ziegfeld, but Funny Girl is clearly, unmistakably Streisand’s picture. There’s little room for anyone or anything else. (Beautiful actress Anne Francis’s role as Fanny’s sardonic showgirl confidante was all but cut out of the film, for example, to make more room for Barbra’s singing and emoting.

Duelling divas: Streisand and Garland harmonize

And it is indeed a rich, satisfying and startling film performance. Not since Judy Garland had there been a musical star so vibrant, so versatile, so in command in front of the camera. Garland had been galvanized, inspired and challenged by the youngster’s talents during that memorable 1963 guest appearance. Judy herself had been considered an unconventional Hollywood beauty as well, feeling like an ugly duckling next to costars like Lana Turner and Hedy Lamarr at MGM.

"I'm the Greatest Star" —and she wasn't kidding

Streisand won the coveted Academy Award that year for her performance as Fanny Brice. Though she shared the award in a tie with Katharine Hepburn (Kate’s third of an eventual FOUR Best Actress statuettes), the film veteran didn’t show up at the ceremonies, leaving Barbra the spotlight on Oscar night. She accepted her Academy Award in a chic see-through miniskirt creation designed by Arnold Scaasi.

Winning an acting Oscar for your film debut is unusual; for a musical performance, even more rarified. Three years earlier, Julie Andrews had won Best Actress for her film debut in the musical Mary Poppins, and 20 years later Jennifer Hudson would win a Supporting Oscar for her first film, the movie version of Dreamgirls.

Golden-voiced singer, Academy Award-winning Best Actress

Streisand would win a second Academy Award in 1976 as composer of the Oscar-winning song “Evergreen” (this time sharing the honor with Paul Williams) from her film A Star Is Born, but the only other time she would be nominated for her acting (so far!) would be for The Way We Were in 1973.

In the inimitable Hollywood way of attempting to cash in on itself, Streisand’s next two films would also be in the old-school musical vein. Barbra was rushed into two more musicals back to back, On A Clear Day You Can See Forever and Hello, Dolly, with not-always stellar results, proving that the epic movie musical was approaching its death throes...but Barbra’s triumphant career was only just beginning. She jumped into the 1970s with a series of fine performance in more contemporary fare including The Owl and the Pussycat and What’s Up, Doc. Years later, Streisand very reluctantly reprised her role of Fanny Brice in the inferior sequel Funny Lady to fulfill a contract obligation with Ray Stark, the producer who had paved her road to stardom with Funny Girl (and happened to be married to Fanny Brice’s daughter Fran).

Her tour de force film debut took Hollywood and the world by storm, and the indefatigable Barbra has remained an A-List superstar ever since.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Judy D. Takes On Judy G.

Playing an iconic star in a musical biopic is a risk for any actor, but a few have risen to the challenge and triumphed: Sissy Spacek (Loretta Lynn), Angela Bassett (Tina Turner), Jamie Fox (Ray Charles), Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon (Johnny and June Carter Cash) come to mind. Other talented performers have crashed and burned: Julie Andrews (Gertrude Lawrence), Val Kilmer (Jim Morrison) and Kevin Spacey (Bobby Darin) are among the genre’s valiant victims.

In 2001, it was announced that a TV version of Lorna Luft’s memoir Me and My Shadows would be produced as a two-night miniseries on ABC. I wasn’t expecting much, but I ended up loving it for the most part. The brilliant Australian actress Judy Davis had achieved what I thought no other actor would been able to attempt, capturing the essence of a superstar with more talent and more neuroses than any other in recent memory.

Unlike fellow icons Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley, who have been the subjects of numerous biopics, TV movies and miniseries, there have actually been very few occasions that an actor has attempted to play the role of Judy Garland on film or television.

Since early childhood, I have been a Garland super-fan (obviously anecdotal evidence of the so-called gay gene). At the tender age of 5 or 6, I was old enough to stay up past my bedtime to watch The Wizard of Oz on TV with my family. As the camera lingered on a long, loving Technicolor close-up of Dorothy murmuring, “There’s no place like home,” I sighed. “I love her; she is so beautiful.”

“She’s dead,” my father said flatly. “She died of a drug overdose.” I gasped in horror and disbelief. But he wasn’t kidding.

Garland in the 1960s

My mother had met her, actually been in the great lady’s presence, as a production assistant on the Ed Sullivan Show in the mid-1960s. “That poor thing,” she remembered. “We had to babysit her all afternoon, to make sure she didn’t get too drunk to do the show.” Poor Dorothy! That girl in the blue gingham dress a drunk, a drug addict, and now...gone? It didn’t seem possible.

Thus began my fascination with Judy Garland. I set out to find out everything about her, and in the process I became somewhat of a Garland scholar. Though I didn’t get to see most of her movies until the VHS/Blockbuster boom of the 1980s, I never missed Oz, Easter Parade and Meet Me in St. Louis on TV every year. A local library was showing (the truncated version of) A Star is Born, and I dragged my mother there to see it. And I read every book I could get my hands on, including Judy by Gerold Frank, The MGM Story and best of all, Rainbow: The Stormy Life of Judy Garland by Christopher Finch.

In 1978, I was very excited to hear that Andrea McArdle, fresh from her Broadway triumph in the title role of Annie, had been cast in the role of young Frances Gumm in a TV adaptation of Rainbow (the first half of the Finch book). Like Judy, Andrea was a little girl with a big, big voice. Though the movie was quite faithful to the book in taking us through Garland’s nomadic childhood and relationship with her high-strung stage mother Ethel (well-played by Piper Laurie) and beloved gay father Frank (Don Murray), only one aspect jarred me, an important one. I didn’t buy McArdle in the role; her Frances had none of the humor, vulnerability and pathos that made Garland a star. In fact, her characterization seemed rather blank and colorless. I did enjoy her strong vocal renditions of songs like “Dinah” and “Zing Went the Strings of My Heart,” but I just couldn’t suspend my disbelief and accept Andrea as Judy.

As an actress, Andrea was a great singer

Neither did the critics, apparently, or the viewers. Plans for a follow-up TV-movie covering of the second half of Finch’s Rainbow book, picking up in the 1940s with Stockard Channing as the grown-up Garland, were promptly shelved. (I would have loved to see what Miss Channing, after her star-making turn as Rizzo in the film version of Grease, could have done with the role.)

Stockard Channing might have been great as Judy

In 2001, Australian actress Judy Davis was given the role of a lifetime, the one that she considered her most challenging. Davis is a consummate character actor, known for her chameleon-like transformations in roles as varied as a proper Englishwoman in A Passage to India, criminal sociopath Sante Kimes in A Little Thing Called Murder, a few of Woody Allen’s most memorably neurotic women in several of the auteur’s films, and as a famously icy First Lady in The Reagans.

The gifted and charismatic Judy Davis

In Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows, Davis expertly captures all the various facets of the Garland personality and legend—movie star, stage icon, dragon lady, victim, drug addict, doting mother, gamine—with fierce energy and bona fide charisma. Perhaps Davis is just a shade tougher than the troubled lady she’s portraying (if the real Judy had been this iron-willed, she might not have faded away so soon), but she skillfully captures the famous gestures, vocal rhythms and inflections, and especially her fabled humor, in an always compelling and entertaining manner. And in the later sequences, the physical resemblance to the mature Judy is striking. A bit mechanical in the painstakingly recreated musical numbers in which she lip-syncs to the superstar’s real recordings (drag-queen style!), the actress nevertheless dominates the proceedings with utter assurance. For her performance, Davis won both the Golden Globe and Emmy Award as Best Actress in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television.

Davis emotes for "Over the Rainbow"

Pantomiming "Get Happy"

Judy as Judy at the Palace with Lorna (Allison Pill) and Joey (Alex House)

Davis gives a tour de force performance as the mature Garland, but Tammy Blanchard (most recently one of the wicked stepsisters in Into The Woods) is equally effective as young Frances, especially during her climactic nervous breakdown scene with taskmaster Busby Berkeley (during the filming of the “I Got Rhythm” number from Girl Crazy). Blanchard does a masterful job of carrying Part 1 of the story, capturing the wistful vulnerability of child star Garland, and she received an Emmy Award as Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal.

Tammy Blanchard as Judy as Dorothy

Other notable performances: Marsha Mason, a wonderful actress who has made few appearances since her heyday in the late 1970s (The Goodbye Girl, Only When I Laugh), is effective as stage mama Ethel, and versatile Victor Garber (Titanic) is a standout as third husband Sid Luft.

Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows pulls out all the stops as the ultimate Garland film biography. As a result, it is less faithful to Lorna Luft’s memoir than the title leads us to believe--poor Lorna, in fact, is reduced to a minor supporting character in her own story. But it’s a top-notch biopic nevertheless, with an unforgettable star turn by Judy Davis.

I’ve heard Anne Hathaway has been approached to play Judy in a new big-screen adaptation of the legendary star’s life and loves to be directed by Rob Marshall. Daughter Liza says she thinks Anne will be wonderful in the role. I reserve judgment! (And maybe, it will never even happen...fingers crossed.)

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Judging Nuremberg

Director Stanley Kramer loved movies with a message...Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, The Defiant Ones, Inherit the Wind. He is equally well known for his big, splashy epics with all-star casts, like It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World and Ship of Fools. Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) combines both of Kramer’s directorial strengths in one powerhouse of a film.

Based on a Playhouse 90 television drama with a script by Abby Mann, the film version had to be bigger and more spectacular, so director Stanley Kramer pulled out all the stops by planning location filming in battle-scarred Nuremberg itself and assembling a cast that audiences would pay admission to see in the theaters.

But Judgment is far more than a collection of stars. It provides a group of fine actors the opportunity to lay their Hollywood personas aside and sink their teeth into unusual, once-in-a-lifetime roles.

Burt Lancaster as Dr. Ernst Janning

Rugged Burt Lancaster, whose career had been built as much upon his good looks and athletic physique as his acting talent, plays against type as the aging Dr. Ernst Janning, who signed into law the Nazi edicts that robbed millions of citizens of their human rights. When Janning’s resigned stoicism gives way to regret and contrition, the audience experiences a catharsis that’s a testament to the talents of a truly gifted actor.

Maximilian Schell and Richard Widmark

Handsome Richard Widmark has rarely been better than as the crusading American prosecutor hell-bent on justice for the millions of Jews slaughtered during the European genocide. Self-righteous and angry, hating every moment he must spend in the enemy’s homeland, his demonization of an entire nation of people seems nevertheless justified.

Judy Garland as Irene Hoffmann

Judy Garland, absent from films since 1954’s A Star Is Born and now approaching 40, is compelling in the non-singing character role of hausfrau Irene Hoffmann, who enjoyed a controversially intimate friendship with a Jewish neighbor when back in her teens. In this small part, Garland is heartbreakingly vulnerable, a bird with broken wings. For this performance, Judy Garland was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress.

Montgomery Clift as Rudolph Petersen

Montgomery Clift channels his inner demons to portray the mentally disabled Rudolph Petersen, whom the Nazi Party ordered sterilized to “cleanse” the population of debility in their quest to evolve into an Aryan super-race. Clift’s startling cameo as the halting-voiced and humiliated victim of inhuman torture is unforgettable.

Marlene Dietrich as Frau Bertholt

Glamorous German ice queen Marlene Dietrich is perfectly cast as Mrs. Bertholt, widow of a convicted and executed officer of the German army, whose home Judge Haywood is given for the duration of the trial. Her explanation and rationalization of Nazi atrocities summarizes the prevailing post-War German attitude toward the Holocaust: “We did not know.”

Maximilian Schell is passionate and fiery as the young attorney assigned to defend the indefensible. His skillful and articulate direct and cross examinations of witnesses, so beautifully laid out by writer Abby Mann, is highly compelling and almost succeeds in obscuring the architects of the 20th century’s most ignominious tragedies in reasonable doubt. For his performance, Schell won the Best Actor Academy Award.

Spencer Tracy as Judge Dan Haywood

With his craggy face furrowed and his weary shoulders bowed with profound questions of right and wrong, good and evil, Spencer Tracy brings the full force of his considerable talents to bring the difficult role of the tribunal judge Dan Haywood to life. Though it’s been often said that Spencer Tracy reduced his own film acting philosophy to one simple rule: “Find your marks and tell the truth,” there is a lot more going on here than mere technique. Tracy’s thoughtful and multidimensional performance is understated yet powerful, but melds beautifully with the introverted method-like work of Garland and Clift and the more representational portrayals of German actors Dietrich and Schell.

Director Kramer’s point of view, as seen through protagonist Tracy, allows every character of the story humanity and dignity, even those who condoned atrocities that robbed millions of those same qualities.

For lovers of courtroom drama and truly great acting, Judgment at Nuremberg is a must-see.