ROMANTIC MELODRAMA

Evening Star, Issue 22773, 7 October 1937, Page 18

ROMANTIC MELODRAMA

MARCH AND GAYKOR FOR REGENT An artistic achievement ami one of tho most distinguished romantic melodramas seen on screens for a long time, ‘ A Star Is Born,’ coming to-morrow to the Regent, has as its predominant

charm a deep human-interest story. Another feature is that technicolour amplifies the glamour of the ' production. The picture presents a new and more lovable and appealing Janet Gaynor. Dramatically it is a masterpiece. The story concerns Esther Victoria Blodgett, played by Janet Gaynor, a, country girl who dreams that one day she will be a picture star. While her family ridicules the idea, Esther’s grandmother, played by May Robson, tells of her own struggle right from

the days when she rode in the “ prairie schooners,” and supplies the girl with sufficient money for her to go to Hollywood. In Hollywood Esther meets an assistant director in a rooming house, and after many disappointments at the film studios she accepts a job at 3dol as a waitress at a bright party given by the picture star, Norman Maine (Fredric March), and attended by the big directors and executives of Hollywood. Maine succeeds in persuading his director to give the

girl a screen test. Success is immediate. Overnight a star is born, for Esther is selected to play the leading role opposite Maine. ' She marries Norman Maine, but in him finds a drunken and irresponsible husband, saddened by his passing into oblivion. His director no longer wants him. His stock has slumped, a and he is no longer a success. Maine takes the only way out so as not to hinder the career of the woman he loves. Grandma Lettie arrives in Hollywood to find that Esther

is disconsolate and wants to retire from the screen, but she takes the good advice and continues her screen career' with even more success. In the appealing story the audience is taken on visits to many famous Hollywood spots, such as Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the Santa Anita race track, the Hollywood Bowl, and into studios and on location. The glamour of Hollywood is of secondary interest to the appeal of the motivating story. Both Janet Gaynor and Frediio Mctrofe rise

to great heights in ‘ A Star Is Born/ and they are ;ably supported by »ucl| artists as Adolphe Menjou, May Rob* son, Owen Moore, and other well* known players, ,