Star! (film)
Encyclopedia
Star! is a 1968 American musical film directed by Robert Wise
. The screenplay by William Fairchild is based upon the life and career of British performer Gertrude Lawrence
.
chronicling her life, then flashes back
to Clapham
in 1915, when she leaves home to join her vaudevillian
father in a dilapidated Brixton
music hall
. Eventually she joins the chorus in André Charlot
's West End
revue
. She reunites with close childhood friend Noël Coward
who provides witty commentary on Gertie's actions. Charlot becomes annoyed with Gertie's efforts to stand out, literally, from the chorus. He threatens to fire her, but stage manager Jack Roper intercedes and gets her hired as a general understudy to the leads. She marries Jack, but it's clear she is more inclined to perform onstage than stay home and play wife. While pregnant, she insists on going on for an absent star, and captivates the audience with her own star-making performance of "Burlington Bertie
". Charlot and Roeper witness the audiences warm approval, and both realize, Charlot grudgingly and Roeper wistfully, that Gertie belongs on the stage. After their daughter Pamela is born, Gertrude is angered when Roper takes the baby on a pub-crawl, and leaves him. A subsequent courtship with Sir Anthony Spencer, an English nobleman, polishes Gertie's rough edges and transforms her into a lady. Caught at a chic supper club when she is supposed to be on a sick day, she is fired from the Charlot Revue. Squired by Spencer, she becomes the famous darling of society. Coward then convinces Charlot to feature her in his new production, and she is finally recognized as a star. When the revue opens in New York City
, she dallies with an actor and a banker, bringing the number of her suitors to three. Gertrude faces financial ruin after spending all her considerable earnings, but ultimately manages to pay back her debtors and retain her glamor. As her career soars, her long-distance relationship with her daughter deteriorates. When Pamela cancels an anticipated holiday with Gertie, she gets roaring drunk and insults a roomful of people at a surprise birthday party thrown by Coward. Among the insultees at the party is American theatre producer Richard Aldrich. When he returns to escort the hung-over star home, he gives an honest appraisal of her. She is insulted, then intrigued by him, making an unannounced visit to his Cape Playhouse where she proposes to play the lead. They argue at rehearsal. He proposes marriage, she throws him out. Back on Broadway, she has trouble getting a handle on a crucial "The Saga of Jenny
" number in Lady in the Dark
. Aldrich turns up at a daunting rehearsal where he observes her frustration and takes her, with Coward, out to a nightclub. She protests, then realizes the kind of performance they are watching is the key to her dilemma in the show. Coward pronounces him "a very clever man." After a rousing performance of "Jenny," the film ends with her marriage to Aldrich, eight years before her triumph in The King and I
and untimely death from liver cancer
at age 54.
signed to star in The Sound of Music
, her contract with 20th Century-Fox was a two-picture deal. As Music neared completion, director Robert Wise and producer Saul Chaplin had grown quite fond of Julie, and proposed a follow-up film with her. Wise's story editor Max Lamb suggested a biopic of Gertrude Lawrence and, although Andrews previously had rejected offers to portray the entertainer, she was anxious to work with Wise and Chaplin again and warmed to their story approach.
Once Andrews was on board, Wise bought the rights to both Lawrence's 1945 autobiography A Star Danced and her second husband's 1954 memoir Gertrude Lawrence as Mrs. A. Max Lamb did extensive research, including numerous interviews with people who actually knew Lawrence. It became clear that the interviews provided a more accurate account than the obviously rosy picture in the books, so they became the basis for the screenplay. Wise felt it was important to hire a British screenwriter and decided on William Fairchild. The contrast of the rosy impression of her life in the books vs. the less glamorous real story from the interviews found its way into the script, which initially had an animated Gertie telling the story while the live version played out what (more or less) really happened. Eventually Fairchild suggested Lawrence's story be told in (color) flashback while she watched a (B&W) documentary about her life, thus allowing the "real" Gertie in a screening room set to comment on the veracity of the "reel" Gertie in the film within the film.
Fairchild's screenplay renamed, replaced or combined some real people, for dramatic and legal reasons. Two of Lawrence's closest friends, Noël Coward and Beatrice Lillie, were approached regarding the rights to portray them in the film. While Coward was generally supportive, suggesting only small alterations to his character's dialogue, Miss Lillie had a "manager" who demanded that she play herself, in addition to numerous script changes that enlarged her role. Wise then asked Fairchild to find the name of another female performer Gertie had worked with, who was already deceased. Billie Carleton became the composite character that replaced Miss Lillie in the film. When Lawrence reconnects with her wayward father in the film, he is performing in music halls with a mature woman who joins him when he departs for a job in South Africa
. In reality Rose was a chorus girl not much older than Lawrence, and she remained in the UK. On screen, Lawrence's first husband Jack Roper is roughly her age, whereas in real life his name was Francis Gordon-Howley and he was twenty years her senior. Her upper-class Guardsman boyfriend, actually Capt. Philip Astley, is identified as Sir Tony Spencer on screen, and the Wall Street financier named Ben Mitchell in the film was really Bert Taylor.
Daniel Massey
, who portrayed Noël Coward, was Coward's godson in real life. His performance earned one of the seven Academy Award nominations for the film. In his commentary for the laserdisc and DVD
release of the film, Massey reveals he was unhappy with the sound of his voice when he saw the film for the first time. As production wrapped in late 1967 he, at his own request, re-dubbed all of his dialogue before returning home to London. Massey's commentary also recounts a conversation in which Coward addressed his own sexual orientation, which is barely hinted at in the film. Massey quotes Coward saying "I've tried it all, from soup to nuts..." confirming his preference for the latter.
Michael Kidd
choreographed
the musical sequences. Both he and Andrews have talked about his pushing her beyond what she thought her limits were, particularly for "Burlington Bertie" and "Jenny" - which turned out to be among her best moments on film. Andrews has said that her lasting friendship with Kidd and his dance assistant/wife Shelah, is one of the things she valued most from the experience. Boris Leven
was responsible for the outstanding production design
and his realistic sets took over nine different stages on the Fox lot. Famous fashion designer Donald Brooks
designed 3,040 individual costumes for the film, including a record 125 outfits for Andrews alone. The $750,000 cost of Andrews' extravagant wardrobe was subsidized by Western Costume company, which took ownership after filming. Western rented them out to many subsequent TV and movie productions, (including FUNNY LADY) for over 20 years, then auctioned off most of them, along with hundreds of other famous costumes, at Butterfield & Butterfield's in West Hollywood.
At a time when the popularity of roadshow theatrical release
s in general, and musicals in particular, were on the wane, the United States was one of the last countries in which the film was released. When the film was in production, 15,000 people responded to promotional ads placed by 20th Century Fox
for advance ticket sales in New York City, but a year later, when the studio followed up by mailing them order forms, only a very small percentage actually bought tickets. Sales were higher for Wednesday Matinees than for Saturday Nights, which indicated that crucial component - young adults - would not be a large part of the picture's audience. The film opened in the US with little advance sale, and good-to-mediocre reviews.
Star! was a commercial disappointment in its initial run, suffering about 20 minutes of studio requested and director-approved cuts, while still in its roadshow engagements. Hoping to recoup some of its estimated $14 million cost, 20th Century Fox executive Richard Zanuck decided to withdraw the film, do some primitive "market research" (testing 3 titles: "Music For The Lady", "Those Were The Happy Days" and "Star!"), then substantially cut and re-market the film under the new title, Those Were The Happy Times. Wise, who did not believe cutting the film would work, declined to be involved in the editing, and asked that the credit "A Robert Wise Film" be removed. Following instructions from Zanuck, William H. Reynolds
, the film's original editor, reluctantly but very competently removed scenes and whole sequences, including many of the musical numbers, paring the film's running time from 175 to 120 minutes, but when the short version was released in the fall of 1969, the changes left some holes in the plot, and did little to improve box office receipts. The fact that the reissue was to be shown only in 35mm, coincidentally saved the original camera negative of the film from being altered.
The film debuted on American television in its truncated form, but with its original title. Within a week, it was broadcast in the UK at its original length, with only the overture
and entr'acte
eliminated.
One unusual feature about the uncut version of the film was that, like many released today, it had no opening credits. The only credits seen at the beginning were those of the newsreel being made about Gertrude Lawrence, which is the first thing the audience viewing the film sees. The Twentieth-Century Fox logo was seen only as part of that newsreel, not as part of the actual film, and appeared only in black-and-white.
After the complete version had been unseen and thought lost for nearly 20 years, a film library had a new 35mm print struck. Numerous screenings on the revival theatre circuit, cable TV, and home video, have since earned Star! a reputation as an underrated "lost classic" and a cult favorite.
While the initial US video release (on VHS and Laserdisc) featured a stunning transfer of the entire 176 minute film (from the 65mm camera negative and six-channel magnetic soundtrack), the DVD (mastered from 35mm elements, with inaccurate color, framing and sound mix ) runs only 173 minutes, because Fox cut the intermission/entr'acte sequence.
of the New York Times (who reportedly left the screening at intermission)
. People who like old-style musicals should get their money's worth. So should people who like Julie Andrews. But people who liked Gertrude Lawrence had better stick with their record collections and memories."
Variety
said, "Julie Andrews' portrayal . . . occasionally sags between musical numbers but the cast and team of redoubtable technical contributors have helped to turn out a pleasing tribute to one of the theatre's most admired stars. It gives a fascinating coverage of Lawrence's spectacular rise to showbiz fame, and also a neatly observed background of an epoch now gone."
Time Out London says, "Wise's biopic hardly deserved the rough treatment it received from most critics and audiences, who had been led by the studio's advertising to expect another Sound of Music
. This was a far more ambitious project; it backfired, but it backfired with a certain amount of honour. Daniel Massey's mincing portrayal of his godfather Noël Coward wins hands down over all the other impersonations."
TV Guide
thought "it deserved a better fate for its enormous score, top-flight production, excellent choreography, and fine acting."
Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times
Described the film as "stylish, sharp-edged, and underrated."
Robert Wise
Robert Earl Wise was an American sound effects editor, film editor, film producer and director...
. The screenplay by William Fairchild is based upon the life and career of British performer Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence was an English actress, singer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End theatre district of London and on Broadway.-Early life:...
.
Plot
The film opens in 1940, with Lawrence in a screening room watching a documentary filmDocumentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
chronicling her life, then flashes back
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
to Clapham
Clapham
Clapham is a district in south London, England, within the London Borough of Lambeth.Clapham covers the postcodes of SW4 and parts of SW9, SW8 and SW12. Clapham Common is shared with the London Borough of Wandsworth, although Lambeth has responsibility for running the common as a whole. According...
in 1915, when she leaves home to join her vaudevillian
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
father in a dilapidated Brixton
Brixton
Brixton is a district in the London Borough of Lambeth in south London, England. It is south south-east of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London....
music hall
Music hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
. Eventually she joins the chorus in André Charlot
André Charlot
André Eugene Maurice Charlot was a French impresario known primarily for the highly successful musical revues he staged in London between 1912 and 1937...
's West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
revue
Revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...
. She reunites with close childhood friend Noël Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
who provides witty commentary on Gertie's actions. Charlot becomes annoyed with Gertie's efforts to stand out, literally, from the chorus. He threatens to fire her, but stage manager Jack Roper intercedes and gets her hired as a general understudy to the leads. She marries Jack, but it's clear she is more inclined to perform onstage than stay home and play wife. While pregnant, she insists on going on for an absent star, and captivates the audience with her own star-making performance of "Burlington Bertie
Burlington Bertie
"Burlington Bertie" is a music hall song composed by Harry B. Norris in 1900 and sung by Vesta Tilley. It concerns an aristocratic young idler who pursues a life of leisure in the West End of London....
". Charlot and Roeper witness the audiences warm approval, and both realize, Charlot grudgingly and Roeper wistfully, that Gertie belongs on the stage. After their daughter Pamela is born, Gertrude is angered when Roper takes the baby on a pub-crawl, and leaves him. A subsequent courtship with Sir Anthony Spencer, an English nobleman, polishes Gertie's rough edges and transforms her into a lady. Caught at a chic supper club when she is supposed to be on a sick day, she is fired from the Charlot Revue. Squired by Spencer, she becomes the famous darling of society. Coward then convinces Charlot to feature her in his new production, and she is finally recognized as a star. When the revue opens in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, she dallies with an actor and a banker, bringing the number of her suitors to three. Gertrude faces financial ruin after spending all her considerable earnings, but ultimately manages to pay back her debtors and retain her glamor. As her career soars, her long-distance relationship with her daughter deteriorates. When Pamela cancels an anticipated holiday with Gertie, she gets roaring drunk and insults a roomful of people at a surprise birthday party thrown by Coward. Among the insultees at the party is American theatre producer Richard Aldrich. When he returns to escort the hung-over star home, he gives an honest appraisal of her. She is insulted, then intrigued by him, making an unannounced visit to his Cape Playhouse where she proposes to play the lead. They argue at rehearsal. He proposes marriage, she throws him out. Back on Broadway, she has trouble getting a handle on a crucial "The Saga of Jenny
The Saga of Jenny
"The Saga of Jenny" is a popular song written for the 1941 Broadway musical Lady in the Dark, with music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Ira Gershwin.The music is marked "Allegretto quasi andantino"; Gershwin describes it as "a sort of blues bordello"....
" number in Lady in the Dark
Lady in the Dark
Lady in the Dark is a musical with music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and book and direction by Moss Hart. It was produced by Sam Harris. The protagonist, Liza Elliott, is the unhappy female editor of a fashion magazine, Allure, who is undergoing psychoanalysis...
. Aldrich turns up at a daunting rehearsal where he observes her frustration and takes her, with Coward, out to a nightclub. She protests, then realizes the kind of performance they are watching is the key to her dilemma in the show. Coward pronounces him "a very clever man." After a rousing performance of "Jenny," the film ends with her marriage to Aldrich, eight years before her triumph in The King and I
The King and I
The King and I is a stage musical, the fifth by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The work is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon and derives from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who became governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in...
and untimely death from liver cancer
Hepatocellular carcinoma
Hepatocellular carcinoma is the most common type of liver cancer. Most cases of HCC are secondary to either a viral hepatitide infection or cirrhosis .Compared to other cancers, HCC is quite a rare tumor in the United States...
at age 54.
Production
According to extensive production details provided in the DVD release of the film, when Julie AndrewsJulie Andrews
Dame Julia Elizabeth Andrews, DBE is an English film and stage actress, singer, and author. She is the recipient of Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy, BAFTA, People's Choice Award, Theatre World Award, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award honors...
signed to star in The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music (film)
Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music is a 1965 American musical film directed by Robert Wise and starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. The film is based on the Broadway musical The Sound of Music, with songs written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, and with the musical...
, her contract with 20th Century-Fox was a two-picture deal. As Music neared completion, director Robert Wise and producer Saul Chaplin had grown quite fond of Julie, and proposed a follow-up film with her. Wise's story editor Max Lamb suggested a biopic of Gertrude Lawrence and, although Andrews previously had rejected offers to portray the entertainer, she was anxious to work with Wise and Chaplin again and warmed to their story approach.
Once Andrews was on board, Wise bought the rights to both Lawrence's 1945 autobiography A Star Danced and her second husband's 1954 memoir Gertrude Lawrence as Mrs. A. Max Lamb did extensive research, including numerous interviews with people who actually knew Lawrence. It became clear that the interviews provided a more accurate account than the obviously rosy picture in the books, so they became the basis for the screenplay. Wise felt it was important to hire a British screenwriter and decided on William Fairchild. The contrast of the rosy impression of her life in the books vs. the less glamorous real story from the interviews found its way into the script, which initially had an animated Gertie telling the story while the live version played out what (more or less) really happened. Eventually Fairchild suggested Lawrence's story be told in (color) flashback while she watched a (B&W) documentary about her life, thus allowing the "real" Gertie in a screening room set to comment on the veracity of the "reel" Gertie in the film within the film.
Fairchild's screenplay renamed, replaced or combined some real people, for dramatic and legal reasons. Two of Lawrence's closest friends, Noël Coward and Beatrice Lillie, were approached regarding the rights to portray them in the film. While Coward was generally supportive, suggesting only small alterations to his character's dialogue, Miss Lillie had a "manager" who demanded that she play herself, in addition to numerous script changes that enlarged her role. Wise then asked Fairchild to find the name of another female performer Gertie had worked with, who was already deceased. Billie Carleton became the composite character that replaced Miss Lillie in the film. When Lawrence reconnects with her wayward father in the film, he is performing in music halls with a mature woman who joins him when he departs for a job in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. In reality Rose was a chorus girl not much older than Lawrence, and she remained in the UK. On screen, Lawrence's first husband Jack Roper is roughly her age, whereas in real life his name was Francis Gordon-Howley and he was twenty years her senior. Her upper-class Guardsman boyfriend, actually Capt. Philip Astley, is identified as Sir Tony Spencer on screen, and the Wall Street financier named Ben Mitchell in the film was really Bert Taylor.
Daniel Massey
Daniel Massey (actor)
Daniel Raymond Massey was an English actor and performer. He is possibly best known for his starring role in the British TV drama The Roads to Freedom, as Daniel, alongside Michael Bryant...
, who portrayed Noël Coward, was Coward's godson in real life. His performance earned one of the seven Academy Award nominations for the film. In his commentary for the laserdisc and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
release of the film, Massey reveals he was unhappy with the sound of his voice when he saw the film for the first time. As production wrapped in late 1967 he, at his own request, re-dubbed all of his dialogue before returning home to London. Massey's commentary also recounts a conversation in which Coward addressed his own sexual orientation, which is barely hinted at in the film. Massey quotes Coward saying "I've tried it all, from soup to nuts..." confirming his preference for the latter.
Michael Kidd
Michael Kidd
Michael Kidd was an American film and stage choreographer.-Life and career:Born Milton Greenwald in New York City on the Lower East Side, the son of Abraham Greenwald, an immigrant barber, and his wife Lillian, Michael Kidd moved to Brooklyn with his family and attended New Utrecht High School there...
choreographed
Choreography
Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements in which motion, form, or both are specified. Choreography may also refer to the design itself, which is sometimes expressed by means of dance notation. The word choreography literally means "dance-writing" from the Greek words "χορεία" ...
the musical sequences. Both he and Andrews have talked about his pushing her beyond what she thought her limits were, particularly for "Burlington Bertie" and "Jenny" - which turned out to be among her best moments on film. Andrews has said that her lasting friendship with Kidd and his dance assistant/wife Shelah, is one of the things she valued most from the experience. Boris Leven
Boris Leven
Boris Leven was a Russian-born Academy Award-winning art director and production designer whose Hollywood career spanned fifty-three years....
was responsible for the outstanding production design
Production designer
In film and television, a production designer is the person responsible for the overall look of a filmed event such as films, TV programs, music videos or adverts. Production designers have one of the key creative roles in the creation of motion pictures and television. Working directly with the...
and his realistic sets took over nine different stages on the Fox lot. Famous fashion designer Donald Brooks
Donald Brooks
Donald Brooks was an American fashion designer. Though he was very successful, if not as famous as some of his contemporaries, his passion was his work for the stage and film, designing over 3500 costumes...
designed 3,040 individual costumes for the film, including a record 125 outfits for Andrews alone. The $750,000 cost of Andrews' extravagant wardrobe was subsidized by Western Costume company, which took ownership after filming. Western rented them out to many subsequent TV and movie productions, (including FUNNY LADY) for over 20 years, then auctioned off most of them, along with hundreds of other famous costumes, at Butterfield & Butterfield's in West Hollywood.
At a time when the popularity of roadshow theatrical release
Roadshow theatrical release
A roadshow theatrical release was a term in the American motion picture industry for a practice in which a film opened in a limited number of theaters in large cities like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Dallas, and San Francisco for a specific period of time before the...
s in general, and musicals in particular, were on the wane, the United States was one of the last countries in which the film was released. When the film was in production, 15,000 people responded to promotional ads placed by 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
for advance ticket sales in New York City, but a year later, when the studio followed up by mailing them order forms, only a very small percentage actually bought tickets. Sales were higher for Wednesday Matinees than for Saturday Nights, which indicated that crucial component - young adults - would not be a large part of the picture's audience. The film opened in the US with little advance sale, and good-to-mediocre reviews.
Star! was a commercial disappointment in its initial run, suffering about 20 minutes of studio requested and director-approved cuts, while still in its roadshow engagements. Hoping to recoup some of its estimated $14 million cost, 20th Century Fox executive Richard Zanuck decided to withdraw the film, do some primitive "market research" (testing 3 titles: "Music For The Lady", "Those Were The Happy Days" and "Star!"), then substantially cut and re-market the film under the new title, Those Were The Happy Times. Wise, who did not believe cutting the film would work, declined to be involved in the editing, and asked that the credit "A Robert Wise Film" be removed. Following instructions from Zanuck, William H. Reynolds
William H. Reynolds
William H. Reynolds was an American film editor whose career spanned six decades. His credits include such notable films as The Sound of Music, The Godfather, The Sting, and The Turning Point...
, the film's original editor, reluctantly but very competently removed scenes and whole sequences, including many of the musical numbers, paring the film's running time from 175 to 120 minutes, but when the short version was released in the fall of 1969, the changes left some holes in the plot, and did little to improve box office receipts. The fact that the reissue was to be shown only in 35mm, coincidentally saved the original camera negative of the film from being altered.
The film debuted on American television in its truncated form, but with its original title. Within a week, it was broadcast in the UK at its original length, with only the overture
Overture
Overture in music is the term originally applied to the instrumental introduction to an opera...
and entr'acte
Entr'acte
' is French for "between the acts" . It can mean a pause between two parts of a stage production, synonymous to an intermission, but it more often indicates a piece of music performed between acts of a theatrical production...
eliminated.
One unusual feature about the uncut version of the film was that, like many released today, it had no opening credits. The only credits seen at the beginning were those of the newsreel being made about Gertrude Lawrence, which is the first thing the audience viewing the film sees. The Twentieth-Century Fox logo was seen only as part of that newsreel, not as part of the actual film, and appeared only in black-and-white.
After the complete version had been unseen and thought lost for nearly 20 years, a film library had a new 35mm print struck. Numerous screenings on the revival theatre circuit, cable TV, and home video, have since earned Star! a reputation as an underrated "lost classic" and a cult favorite.
While the initial US video release (on VHS and Laserdisc) featured a stunning transfer of the entire 176 minute film (from the 65mm camera negative and six-channel magnetic soundtrack), the DVD (mastered from 35mm elements, with inaccurate color, framing and sound mix ) runs only 173 minutes, because Fox cut the intermission/entr'acte sequence.
Cast
- Julie AndrewsJulie AndrewsDame Julia Elizabeth Andrews, DBE is an English film and stage actress, singer, and author. She is the recipient of Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy, BAFTA, People's Choice Award, Theatre World Award, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award honors...
..... Gertrude LawrenceGertrude LawrenceGertrude Lawrence was an English actress, singer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End theatre district of London and on Broadway.-Early life:... - Daniel MasseyDaniel Massey (actor)Daniel Raymond Massey was an English actor and performer. He is possibly best known for his starring role in the British TV drama The Roads to Freedom, as Daniel, alongside Michael Bryant...
..... Noël CowardNoël CowardSir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy... - Richard CrennaRichard CrennaRichard Donald Crenna was an American motion picture, television, and radio actor and occasional television director. He starred in such motion pictures as The Sand Pebbles, Wait Until Dark, Body Heat, the first three Rambo movies, Hot Shots! Part Deux, and The Flamingo Kid...
..... Richard Aldrich - Michael CraigMichael Craig (actor)Michael Craig is a British actor, known for his work in film and television in both the United Kingdom and Australia. Craig was born in Poona, Maharashtra, British India, the son of Donald Gregson, a captain in the 3rd Indian Cavalry. He came to England with his family when aged three, and went to...
..... Sir Anthony Spencer - Robert ReedRobert ReedRobert Reed was a prolific American character actor of stage, film and television. In his first big break, he played Kenneth Preston on the popular 1960s TV legal drama, The Defenders, alongside E. G. Marshall. But he was best remembered for portraying the father, Mike Brady, on the popular...
..... Charles Fraser - Bruce ForsythBruce ForsythSir Bruce Joseph Forsyth-Johnson, CBE , commonly known as Bruce Forsyth, or Brucie, is an English TV personality...
..... Arthur Lawrence - Beryl ReidBeryl ReidBeryl Elizabeth Reid, OBE was a British actress of stage and screen.-Early life:Born in Hereford, England in 1919, Reid was the daughter of Scottish parents and grew up in Manchester where she attended Withington and Levenshulme High Schools.-Career:Reid applied for and was accepted in a revue in...
..... Rose - John CollinJohn Collin (actor)John Collin was a British actor frequently seen on UK television during the 1960s and 1970s mainly in supporting roles. John Collin's best known role was as Detective Sergeant Haggar in the long running BBC police series Z-Cars...
..... Jack Roper - Alan OppenheimerAlan OppenheimerAlan Oppenheimer is an American character actor and voice actor. He has performed numerous roles on live-action television since the 1960s, and has had an active career doing voice work in cartoons since the 1970s.-Early life:...
..... André CharlotAndré CharlotAndré Eugene Maurice Charlot was a French impresario known primarily for the highly successful musical revues he staged in London between 1912 and 1937... - Jock LivingstonJock LivingstonLeonard "Jock" Livingston, born at Hurlstone Park, Sydney on 3 May 1920 and died there on 16 January 1998, was an Australian cricketer who played most of his first-class cricket in England.-Cricket career:...
..... Alexander WoollcottAlexander WoollcottAlexander Humphreys Woollcott was an American critic and commentator for The New Yorker magazine and a member of the Algonquin Round Table.... - Anthony EisleyAnthony EisleyAnthony Eisley was born Frederick Glendinning Eisley in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, whose father was a general sales manager for a large corporation. Father of Amanda Eisley, Jonathan Eisley, Nan R...
..... Ben Mitchell - Jenny AgutterJenny AgutterJennifer Ann "Jenny" Agutter is an English film and television actress. She began her career as a child actress in the mid 1960s, starring in the BBC television series The Railway Children and the film adaptation of the same book, before moving on to adult roles and relocating to Hollywood.She...
..... Pamela Roper
Musical Numbers
- Overture
- 'N' Everything
- Burlington Bertie From Bow
- Dear Little Boy (Dear Little Girl)
- Do, Do, Do
- Forbidden Fruit
- Has Anybody Seen Our Ship?
- In My Garden Of Joy
- Limehouse Blues
- My Ship
- Oh, It's A Lovely War
- Overture (Medley: Star!/Someone To Watch Over Me/Jenny/Dear Little Boy/Limehouse Blues)
- Parisian Pierrot
- Piccadilly
- Someday I'll Find You
- Someone To Watch Over Me
- Star!
- Star! (Extended Version)
- The Physician
- The Saga Of Jenny
Critical reception
Renata AdlerRenata Adler
Renata Adler is an American author, journalist and film critic.-Background and education:Adler was born in Milan, Italy, and grew up in Danbury, Connecticut. After gaining a B.A. in philosophy and German from Bryn Mawr, Adler studied for an M.A. in Comparative Literature at Harvard under I. A...
of the New York Times (who reportedly left the screening at intermission)
Private Lives
Private Lives is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It focuses on a divorced couple who discover that they are honeymooning with their new spouses in neighbouring rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetually stormy relationship, they realise that they still have feelings for...
. People who like old-style musicals should get their money's worth. So should people who like Julie Andrews. But people who liked Gertrude Lawrence had better stick with their record collections and memories."
Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
said, "Julie Andrews' portrayal . . . occasionally sags between musical numbers but the cast and team of redoubtable technical contributors have helped to turn out a pleasing tribute to one of the theatre's most admired stars. It gives a fascinating coverage of Lawrence's spectacular rise to showbiz fame, and also a neatly observed background of an epoch now gone."
Time Out London says, "Wise's biopic hardly deserved the rough treatment it received from most critics and audiences, who had been led by the studio's advertising to expect another Sound of Music
The Sound of Music (film)
Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music is a 1965 American musical film directed by Robert Wise and starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. The film is based on the Broadway musical The Sound of Music, with songs written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, and with the musical...
. This was a far more ambitious project; it backfired, but it backfired with a certain amount of honour. Daniel Massey's mincing portrayal of his godfather Noël Coward wins hands down over all the other impersonations."
TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
thought "it deserved a better fate for its enormous score, top-flight production, excellent choreography, and fine acting."
Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
Described the film as "stylish, sharp-edged, and underrated."
Academy Awards
The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards:- Academy Award for Best Supporting ActorAcademy Award for Best Supporting ActorPerformance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
(Daniel Massey, nominee) - Academy Award for Best CinematographyAcademy Award for Best CinematographyThe Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture.-History:...
(nominee) - Academy Award for Best Color Costume DesignAcademy Award for Costume DesignThe Academy Award for Best Costume Design is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for achievement in film costume design....
(nominee) - Academy Award for Best Art DirectionAcademy Award for Best Art DirectionThe Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony for achievements in motion pictures. The Academy Award for Best Art Direction recognizes achievement in art direction on a film. The films below are listed with their production year, so the Oscar 2000 for best art direction went to a film from 1999...
(Boris LevenBoris LevenBoris Leven was a Russian-born Academy Award-winning art director and production designer whose Hollywood career spanned fifty-three years....
, Walter M. ScottWalter M. ScottWalter M. Scott was an Academy Award-winning set decorator who worked on films such as The Sound of Music and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid....
, and Howard BristolHoward BristolHoward Bristol was an American set decorator. He was nominated for nine Academy Awards in the category Best Art Direction. He worked on 56 films between 1936 and 1968.-Selected filmography:Bristol was nominated for nine Academy Awards for Best Art Direction:...
, nominees) - Academy Award for Best Score of a Musical Picture, Original or AdaptationAcademy Award for Original Music ScoreThe Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...
(nominee) - Academy Award for Best Original SongAcademy Award for Best Original SongThe Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . It is presented to the songwriters who have composed the best original song written specifically for a film...
(Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy CahnSammy CahnSammy Cahn was an American lyricist, songwriter and musician. He is best known for his romantic lyrics to films and Broadway songs, as well as stand-alone songs premiered by recording companies in the Greater Los Angeles Area...
, nominees for "Star!") - Academy Award for Best Sound Mixing
Additional awards
- Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or ComedyGolden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or ComedyThe Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy was first awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association as a separate category in 1950...
(Julie Andrews, nominee) - Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion PictureGolden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion PictureThe Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture was first awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in 1944 for a performance in a motion picture released in the previous year....
(Daniel Massey, winner) - Golden Globe Award for Best Original SongGolden Globe Award for Best Original SongGolden Globe Award for Best Original Song was awarded for the first time in 1962 and has been awarded annually since 1965 by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.-1960s:...
(Van Heusen and Cahn, nominees for "Star!") - Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year - ActorGolden Globe Award for New Star of the Year - ActorThe Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actor originated in 1948. Between 1954 and 1965, multiple winners were announced. The category was discontinued following the 1983 ceremonies.-Winners:*1948: Richard Widmark*1950: Richard Todd, Gene Nelson...
(Daniel Massey, nominee) - Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written American MusicalWriters Guild of America AwardThe Writers Guild of America Award for outstanding achievements in film, television, and radio has been presented annually by the Writers Guild of America, East and Writers Guild of America, West since 1949...
(nominee)