Comparison of two movies-"A Star" and "Show Business"

Lose that Long Face from "A Star is Born"

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I’m watching “There’s no Business Like Show Business” with Ethel Merman (who managed to get herself into nine numbers yet!!) and Dan Dailey; vaudeville couple with three children, Johnnie Ray, Mitzi Gaynor and Donald O’Connor set in the early 1900’s.  This is a typical 20^th Century musical and suddenly I realize it was made in 1954, the same year that Judy made her “A Star is Born” masterpiece.  What a difference!   The first thing I noticed that there were no close-ups, absolutely none – even on Marilyn Monroe who had a small part in the movie. I can only assume that the director or cameraman did not know how to handle them in the new CinemaScope! 

Judy and Johnnie Ray

I enjoyed the Fox musicals and I particularly liked Betty Grable in movies like, “Mother Wore Tights” and there were so, so, many of these vaudeville movies.  

The powers to be who put together “A Star” had a deeper insight into what was happening in “show business” in the mid 1950s.  Of course we had a touch of vaudeville with Judy showing her rise in The Born in a Truck sequence.  

Born in a Trunk 

I thought of what a different path Judy was taking from her friends, and she had many friends in this movie.  I wonder if they ever met during the making of the two movies and discussed their projects.  Judy had met Donald O’Connor as a child in vaudeville and they were good friends through the years.  She and Ethel were certainly long time friends – I remember her telling us (Lorna Smith and I) in London in 1960 that she should be meeting Ethel and Kay Thompson in Italy.  And certainly at the end of her life she was friendly with Johnnie Ray and performed in Europe with him and was living in his rental house in London when she died.  Marilyn and Judy were social friends in Hollywood and fond of eachother.

Judy and Marilyn

How different these movies were and to consider them together makes us realize just how magnificent A Star is Born  was.   Judy was taking control of her career and shaking off the light hearted musicals of MGM.  What a pity that the three film package with Warner Bros. did not happen when she and Luft put together their original plans – just think we might have had two more movies of the caliber of The Star!

  

Still from "A Star"