The Star

 

Stuart Heisler: The Star (US 1952). Lobby card.

Stuart Heisler: The Star (US 1952). Bette Davis (Margaret Elliot).

Stuart Heisler: The Star (US 1952). Natalie Wood (daughter) and Bette Davis (mother).

La diva / Sammuva tähti / Sammunut tähti (tv 1991) / Slocknande stjärna / Star [title in Sweden].
    US 1952. Director: Stuart Heisler. 89 min
    Scen.: Dale Eunson, Katherine Albert. F.: Ernest Laszlo. M.: Otto Ludwig. Scgf.: Boris Leven. Mus.: Victor Young.
    Int.: Bette Davis (Margaret Elliot), Sterling Hayden (Jim Johannsen / Barry Lester), Natalie Wood (Gretchen), Warner Anderson (Harry Stone), Minor Watson (Joe Morrison), June Travis (Phyllis Stone), Paul Frees (Richard Stanley).
    Prod.: Bert E. Friedlob per Thor Productions
    Released by Twentieth Century Fox.
    Finnish premiere: 30 Oct 1953, distributed by Valio-Filmi.
    Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020: Guns for Hire: Frank Tuttle vs. Stuart Heisler
    35 mm print from the BFI National Archive.
    In English with Italian subtitles by Sub-Ti Londra.
    Viewed at Cinema Jolly, 25 Aug 2020
   
Ehsan Khoshbakht (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): "“Come on Oscar, let’s you and me get drunk”, says Bette Davis, as Margaret Elliott, picking up the Academy award on her desk (her own Oscar in fact). Already intoxicated, Davis drives across town giving us a ghost tour of LA mansions, which look like exhibits in a wax museum. With one hand on the wheel, she puts the statue on the dashboard, its head hidden behind the rear-view mirror. She grabs the bottle and makes a toast, “To absent friends”, the image of the headless piece of gold, the blurred lights in the darkness and the bottle capturing Hollywood’s solitary universe in one shot. Telling the story of a former movie star whose career and psychological wellbeing are in decline, The Star has the hardboiled cynicism missing from recent biopics such as Judy (2019). Conceived as a sequel of sorts to All About Eve, here the ride is bumpier than ever. In reality, the early 1950s were not exactly years of struggle for Davis. She meant it as a dramatisation of what she actually wished on her rival, Joan Crawford. Sterling Hayden (who got the role at Davis’ suggestion) playing an actor who has abandoned Hollywood for sailing is closer to real life. And the sight of a young Natalie Wood falling from the deck of a boat in one scene, provides an eerie prophesy of her final tragedy. Shot in 24 days, the film is eloquently conceived, and explores some of Heisler’s favoured themes, such as the conflict between motherhood and career (Smash-Up; Tulsa), and the experience of helping to establish a world of shared dreams through the entertainment business only to be barred from it (Smash-Up). The characters drift towards the edge before returning, scarred but sober (see also Journey into Light). Heisler lays the emotions bare, making characters seem even more vulnerable than they really are. The language of melodrama, almost perfected here, prevails, but the desperate search through the night and the hopeless knocking on doors recalls the logic of film noir too." Ehsan Khoshbakht (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

AA: The Star is an essential Bette Davis vehicle, and she does not disappoint: the woman we love to hate appears in full harridan mode as the falling star Margaret Elliot, rife with delusions. As Ehsan Khoshbakht says, this is a companion piece to All About Eve. This is also Bette Davis's Sunset Boulevard.

Everything points to the direction of tragedy. The film starts with an auction. It continues with an eviction, a rejection and a meeting with greedy parasitic relatives. It seems to veer towards suicide in a night of drunken driving and getting locked up in jail.

That's when real friendship emerges in the form of Sterling Hayden as Jim Johannsen, a former movie actor now living as a sailor. He bails her out and offers her a place to stay, no strings. Important is also Margaret's daughter Gretchen (Natalie Wood) to whom her mother blatantly lies. Jim Margaret treats offensively. Penniless, she steals a bottle of her favourite perfume: Desire Me. Trying to be employed in ordinary jobs, she lies blatantly about her track record. Yes, she is horrible.

But the worst is yet to come. Margaret plans a comeback, and the deepest humilation is not that the Academy Award winning star is required to give a screen test. She defies the director's instructions and performs the scene her way. The final blow is to have to watch the result alone in a screening room and realize that she has lost it.

But Jim and Gretchen have not lost their patience with Margaret. And this is not tragedy, this is a Bette Davis melodrama.

The Star is a key statement about Hollywood stardom, highlighted by Richard Dyer in his wonderful books about the phenomenon. I finally got to see this film that I have been looking forward to see ever since I read those books in the 1970s and the 1980s.