Metrograph

Neither the first nor the last but by many estimations the finest of the show business tale of two fortunes passing one another, one rising, one declining, with Judy Garland as aspiring singer “Vicki Lester,” née Esther Blodgett, and James Mason as the hard-drinking matinee idol “Norman Maine,” né Ernest Gubbins, who takes Esther/Vicki under his wing before proving to need a little protection from himself. Cukor’s first feature in color and his first in CinemaScope, both used with dash and brio.

"Garland's performance is so potent that it practically removes the invisible scrim between audience and performer and between the performer and her character, so that A Star Is Born seems to collapse all reasonable boundaries of melodrama. If it sounds as if I'm engaging in the kind of irrational idolatry that befits a Garland fanatic, then so be it." —Michael Koresky