Midnight Oil:Movies and More

Battle with the Bottle

This week’s first feature on Saturday Night at the Movies on TVO was the famous and entertaining A Star is Born with Judy Garland and James Mason playing the lead parts. The second feature, Star 80, could well have been subtitled A Porn Star is Born.

After a few minutes one hot and steamy night in June, I decided that I didn’t need to put up with explorations into the seedy side of the creation of a Playboy Bunny. A few minutes of watching Paul Snider smear his victim’s blood all over himself was enough for me to “get the picture”. I am sure that the film has many interesting things to say. It explores exploitation, pornography and obsession. Based on a true story about Playboy Playmate, Dorothy Stratten, and told in flashback, I am sure that the uncomplimentary view of the wonderful world of porn had something to offer. It just wasn’t the kind of thing I was looking for that night.

Judy Garland had plum tuckered me out with all that singing and dancing. It was a rather long haul for someone who is not a great fan of Judy Garland. As many have said before, it was a rather long film. Even in the abridged version, which I believe is the one we watched on TVO, it was a long production. (Apparently, additional film footage does exist and even a few more minutes of sound track without the recuperated visual. It was dropped before the original release because of complaints about the film’s length.)

A part of me really likes those old fashioned musicals. I like being entertained. I love the colour, the glitz, the energy, and, above all, the dancing. Where can you see dancing like that today? It’s not very available, at least, not on-screen. They don’t make’em like that anymore.

There are a number of things that I found a bit odd besides the film’s length. I understand that the way the film was made, it sort of grew bigger and bigger until it got just too big. The original story, which had already been made into a movie twice over, was expanded upon in order to add depth to characterization and to incorporate stage vehicles to show off Judy’s talents. This film in 1954 constituted Judy’s personal come-back to the big screen after her contract with the MGM studio had been cancelled three years earlier, evidently due to her own problems with substance abuse.

Can one possibly overlook the irony of seeing Judy Garland playing Esther Blodgett opposite James Mason in the role of Norman Maine? Judy’s own personal history somewhat mirrors things that are depicted in the film. It was Judy herself who was more or less “Born in a Trunk”. She grew up singing and dancing in a vaudeville family. Judy changed her name from the unsightly Frances Ethel Gumm to Judy Garland for the benefit of show biz. The young Judy Garland surely had people around her who made sure that she appeared at the right time and in the right place in order to break into the business. (Who is it that puts a two year old on the stage in an act singing Jingle Bells other than her parents?) In A Star is Born, Norman Maine engineers Ethel’s off-screen screen-test by placing the songbird strategically under the window of the movie mogul, Oliver Niles. I haven’t read an extensive biography of Judy Garland, but it appears that her personal life was probably intertwined much of the time with her professional career. Sidney Luft, husband number four out of a total of five husbands, was the one married to Judy for the longest stretch – 13 years before the divorce came. Luft was the producer for A Star is Born. It appears that this film was a part of a conscious effort on Luft’s part to get his wife working again, a story not so far removed from the memorable scene where Niles and Vicki cook up a scheme in her dressing room to get Norman on his feet again by offering him a small part in an upcoming movie. Judy was certainly not washed up in her career by the time she made A Star is Born in 1954. There were many more good acts to follow. But, there were, let us say, “problems” that interfered with Ms. Garland’s professional life.

The most dramatic parallel between what happens in the movie and real life is, of course, the untimely death of a big star. Because movie stars are very public figures, everything about them, including death, happens in the public eye. Norman Maine plays the hero and walks out into the sea never to return in an effort to spare his wife further heartache and ruin. In other words, he commits suicide. A mob scene of crazed fans at the funeral reveals just how distorted and inhuman celebrity life in Hollywood has become. The official spin from the publicity department on the story is that Norman Maine suffered from an accidental drowning. Thus, Mrs. Norman Maine can derive some sort of comfort from the accolades paid to her in the last scene of the film on behalf of her deceased husband. Public opinion may be fickle and heartless, but Vicki Lester still wants (and needs?) the applause in her moment of tragedy. The official story on Judy Garland’s own premature death at 47 is that she died from an accidental overdose of barbiturates.

Apparently the beginnings of that story occurred much earlier in Judy’s life when, in order to keep up with the intense pace of churning out all of those films as a child and adolescent star, the young Judy was given doses of amphetamines and barbiturates in order for her to be at her “peak” performance - as if Judy’s talent wasn’t enough for the studio. Somehow, someone believed that her performance needed to be “enhanced”. And you thought that that scumbag of a pimp, Paul Snider,was bad!

At one point when Vicki Lester is taking a powder in her dressing room, Niles walks in. A pivotal moment ensues as a tearful Vicki confesses that “Love is not enough. I thought it was. I thought I was the answer for Norman . But love isn’t enough for him.” Vicki is at the end of her tether in dealing with Norman ’s addictions. Niles and Vicki go on to concoct a rescue plan to help Norman get out of the dry-out private clinic and back into films. It doesn’t work. In this scene, Vicki exposes more than her own raw emotions. She exposes some honest truths about the losing battle with substance abuse, something that one sees treated only rarely in Hollywood films up until this point. I might find Judy Garland’s performance in this scene a bit overblown, but, nevertheless, I am willing to honour the truth she tells in this scene. Loving an addict is a “no win” situation. Love alone will not change things. The suffocating stranglehold of substance abuse is fatal, if slow-acting in many cases. In this, the filmmakers of A Star is Born have the courage to overturn one of the most foundational myths upon which Hollywood film is built: the myth that love conquers all.

This is one of the “oddities” that I find a little disconcerting about the film. The heavy subject matter and searing criticism of the Hollywood star-making machinery seem to be at odds with the chosen genre. The musical is usually rightly reserved for much sunnier themes and lighter fare. Sure, it’s a great way to showcase Judy Garland’s considerable talents as an entertainer, but . . . I am not sure that it really “works” in combination with the weight of the drama of the subject matter. It seems to me to be yet another way in which the film trips up in terms of its pacing. I sort of feel like the audience is being asked to be a bit like Vicki Lester during the Lose the Long Face routine. Always the consummate actress, Vicki goes from wiping her copious tears behind the scenes in the dressing room to being thrown into the middle of this song and dance routine with a big (fake) grin on her face; it just doesn’t fit somehow. I get a bit dizzy with the change in gears.

Even though I am not a Judy Garland fan and even though I would say that there are some flaws in this film, I still enjoyed it. I still found it worth watching. Yes, the rather primitive Vicki Lester in-home entertainment unit – the funny and touching scene where Vicki “performs” for her husband in the living room of their Malibu beach house – is representative. It is a bit corny, but I liked watching it anyways. To her credit, you can count on Judy to put on a good show.

Next week, July 2, catch Gone with the Wind (1939) with Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh at 8pm on on TVOntario's Saturday Night at the Movies

Suggested reading :

• What do “The Wizard of Oz” and “A Star is Born” have in common besides their star, Judy Garland? See IMDb trivia.
• Beating the battle with the bottle: an inside story
• Doing it my way: confessions of an addictive personality. 
• What a Playboy Bunny might want you to know about her job