A Star Is Born: The Making of the 1954 Movie and Its 1983 Restoration (29 page)

Location filming of another sort was used for the next major musical
sequence: the song "Here's What I'm Here For" and the scene of Norman's marriage proposal to Vicki were to be photographed on the actual
studio recording stage. The scene was photographed over the next two days,
with twenty-five musicians, sixteen singers, and three actors playing the
sound recording engineers who perpetrate the joke of taping Norman and
Vicki's conversation. Tom Noonan, playing Danny McGuire, now Vicki's
musical arranger, was supposed to lead the orchestra; but Cukor decided
that for the actual conducting of the orchestra he needed a real conductor.
So Ray Heindorf, for the second time in his career, went before the cameras
to play himself, albeit anonymously. (He had played himself in the 1949
film It's a Great Feeling.)

The scene was designed to be taken in fourteen separate shots; and while
they were relatively simple, setting them up, with lighting, camera positions, and the complexities of the music situation, exhausted almost all of
the first day. Cukor spent very little footage on Garland singing; all of the
shots of her with the orchestra were done in one or two takes. The scenes
between her and Mason, however-especially the two of them listening to
the playback with the musicians-were done over and over again, as many
as thirteen times, to achieve the delicacy and charm Cukor wanted.

On December 15, the company began working on one of the more
complicated and expensive sequences in the script. At seven that morning,
257 extras from Central Casting arrived at the studio to be made up and
costumed as the hierarchy of Hollywood for the Academy Awards presentation. As mentioned earlier, the scene was not accurate for the time period
it represented, since the Academy Awards were no longer given at the
Cocoanut Grove. In all probability, Warners wanted to save money by not
having to build another set; moreover, from the standpoint of staging, it
would be easier and simpler to set the scene up at the Grove rather than
on a theater stage, where it would be more difficult for Norman to make
his way to Vicki's side. Whatever the reason, the scene went ahead as
written by Hart. Cukor, as he himself pointed out, was a fanatic about
sticking to what the author wrote. "He worked hard on his scripts," recalls
Gene Allen, "but once they were written, there were not a lot of changes.
I heard him tell more than one actor or actress, `Yes, that's where I want
the period. And, yes, that is a comma, and yes, those dots mean pause. And read it that way.' Once he worked hard on a script and thought that was
it, that's pretty much the way he shot it."

Cukor had been attending Academy Awards ceremonies since 193 1, and
his shrewd observations and sharp eye for details had to be held in check
by him as he sought to conjure up the atmosphere, the excitement and
tension, and sketch in the background and the dozens of little bits of
emphasis with which he wanted to highlight the scene itself. Allen recalls:
"Mr. Cukor and I would rehearse the next day's scene. I would play parts
and he would play parts. I would be the camera, and we would lay out all
the blocking, the action. And then he'd give all this to the cameraman, and
while the crew were lining up and lighting, he would work with the actors."
Cukor later commented: "The curious thing when you're making a picture
. . . you've got this piece of paper in front of you . . . and the actors
... and that's all.... I really don't know what the process is [that makes
it all work], I choose to say it's style. You make big decisions, small decisions
and decisions you aren't even consciously aware of. You do unexpected
things on the set. Making a picture is enormously important to me and the
experience is a joyous one. . . . You can do all sorts of preparation but
nothing can be planned out perfectly ahead of time.... My first reaction
to a scene is always emotional. Even when I describe scenes I describe them
emotionally. I don't weep or anything, but there's always some part of me
left bloody on the scene I've just directed. That's what gives it intensity.
Then there are technical things-I may change the lighting or tell an actor
`You were slow on that,' but it's always the emotional impact first. Also,
a director has to be able to solve certain things, to see what's wrong. He
has to be constantly improving, refining and to do this properly, he has to
know the people with whom he's working. Some people require a very light
touch, others need coaching."

"Cukor was always totally faithful to the subject matter that he planned
to convert into film," recalled James Mason, " ... and when I started to
work with him I [sometimes] found it rather hard going. . . . Here was
George talking at me, talking, talking. I submitted to a nonstop flow of talk
... he was leaning over me all day with his chin thrust out. He had a funny
way of directing, of kind of translating the lines into vivid modern terms'This shit,' `What the fuck.' He had a keen image of what he wanted, the
way he wanted Norman Maine to behave. I believe what he really wanted
was a sort of mimicry of John Barrymore; the only actor he ever talked
about was John Barrymore. In the long run I regret that I could not do just what he had wanted. The image I was creating was not Barrymore-esque
at all-it was based on some of my own drunken friends. In fact this was
the best that I could offer him. Stylistically, a Barrymore figure might have
been preferable; but I never had liked what I saw of Barrymore, at least in
most of his old movies."

While Cukor and Mason tried to mesh their conceptions of Maine, Earl
Bellamy and Russ Llewellyn were working out the background action of the
scenes, rehearsing the extras and bit players. The scene had been set up to
start on a medium shot of Jack Carson as Matt Libby in the jammed press
room as the Best Actor award is presented. As the camera retreats in front
of him, Libby makes his way out to the floor of the main ballroom, walking
past a battery of newsreel and television cameras; as he does, the point of
view shifts to a long shot of the room itself:

Men in dinner coats and women in elaborate evening dress crowd the tables
to the farthest corners of the room. A large television screen is in evidence
on which is being duplicated the same action as is taking place on the stage.
At the moment, the entire room is applauding and a band is playing as
Raymond Wallace, a youngish man, but not a youth, mounts the stage from
the audience to be greeted by Susan Ettinger, last year's Oscar winner, who
shakes hands with him and presents him, this year's male winner, with the
Award statuette.

For the part of Miss Ettinger, Cukor had picked a young red-headed
newcomer named Amanda Blake. Her part consisted solely of announcing
the winner, presenting him the award, listening to his speech, and then
exiting with him. It was what was known as a two-line bit. Richard Webb,
playing the winner, had done featured roles in several Warner Bros. and
Columbia B pictures; Rex Evans, playing the emcee, was a veteran character actor, while Steve Wyman, playing Nigel Peters, who presents Vicki
with her Oscar, was a good-looking newcomer whose only previous work
had been a tiny part in a Universal Western. With all of them Cukor
worked quickly and carefully.

While the action was being worked out and coordinated with the camera crew, the special-effects camera crew was working out an ingenious
split-screen effect that would take advantage of the huge expanse of
CinemaScope screen in an innovative manner. As Vicki is presented with
her award, the main camera would hold on a long shot of the entire room, with Vicki a tiny figure on the stage. On the right side of the
screen, however, was the large television screen that Hart indicated, and
on this would be repeated the same shot. But as the television camera
crew was seen to dolly forward in the action of the scene, the figure on
the television screen was enlarged until the entire television screen was
filled with a close-up of Esther giving her acceptance speech. It was a
unique and effective method of filling the large screen with the spectacle
of the scene while simultaneously concentrating on the intimacy of the
moment.

Because of the complexities of the sequence, the first shot was not taken
until 12:40 p.m., and the shot was retaken seven times; the rest of the day
was spent on the crowd's reaction shots. All the while, Mason waited for
his scenes to be readied; he left at 4:30 without having worked in front of
the camera. It was the same the next day: six shots were taken, none of
which involved Norman.

But on the third day, Mason gave one of the most poignant and subtle
performances in the entire film. As Vicki is making her acceptance speech,
wrote Hart,

Norman enters, drunkenly applauding, stunning the crowd and Vicki into
silence as he mounts the stage, congratulates her, and tenderly kisses her on
the forehead, asking: "May I borrow the end of your speech to make one
of my own?" Addressing the audience, he says:

My method for gaining your attention is a little unusual, perhaps, but hard
times call for harsh measures.... Had my speech all prepared-but it seems
to have gone right out of my head. Let me see [he laughs]-silly to be so
formal, isn't it? I know almost all of you sitting out there by your first names,
don't I? Made a lot of money for you gentlemen through the years, haven't
I? Well, I need a job now! That's it! That's the speech! I need a job .. .
simple as that . . . I need a job . . . that's all. My talents, I might add, are
not strictly confined to dramatic parts-I can do comedy as well. Play something, boys.

He gestures to the orchestra in back of him and inadvertently strikes Vicki
sharply across the face. He stares at her wildly, his eyes not focusing, and
starts to sway slightly. He is beginning to come apart. He makes no effort
to resist as Vicki pilots him from the stage and through the shocked crowd.
Oliver pulls out a chair for him and he almost collapses into it. His hands
go over his eyes as the realization of what he has done begins to come over
him; in anguish he begs, "Somebody give me a drink ... please.... ..

Cukor filmed Mason's scenes in six setups: two alternate versions of his
entrance, two different angles of the bulk of his speech, one long take on
the entire speech, and a close shot of Norman at the table asking for a drink.
The difficulty with doing this kind of delicate scene over and over is, as
Cukor pointed out, "to make it fresh, give little changes each time ... if
you have too much rehearsal (or many takes) it becomes mechanical. Good
people will vary it every time, for every take." It took twelve complete takes
of the scene of Norman's speech before Cukor was satisfied.

The dramatic core of the sequence, what made it so effective, in Cukor's
view, was "seeing a proud man humbled." Mason utilized a bit of business
that he devised himself: having Norman step alternately up and down the
dais as he makes his plea. "It was something I'd seen a little child do once,
as he was being scolded for something-he shifted up and down on each
foot. I thought that Norman was very childlike, and it seemed like a nice
bit, so I just put it in."

The next day, after looking at the rushes, and not seeing everything he
wanted in the okayed takes, Cukor wrote a note to Warner:

Dear Jack:

I saw the rushes on the Academy Award scene. They are powerful and
moving. As I suspected, the action is pretty slow in spots. I think that in some
of the other takes there are parts that probably are more effective, so I would
like to see them as well. Dealing with a drunk is always a pretty tricky
business; you have to tread a fine line. I'd like to be as sure as one reasonably
can about avoiding any of those bad laughs.

That same day, while Cukor was diplomatically confronting Warner on
his "no excess printing" edict, the company had begun shooting scenes in
the Malibu home of Mr. and Mrs. Norman Maine. The sequences scheduled for the day's work involved a gala housewarming party thrown by
Norman and Esther for their friends and co-workers. The day before,
Bellamy had sent out a request for twenty-five dress extras (including, at
Cukor's request, Mae Marsh, the star of D. W. Griffith's Intolerance and
other silent classics). However, in being fitted for Mary Ann Nyberg's
costume for this scene Garland, for whatever reason, was "displeased with
the dress made for scene 8o," as a note in the production log indicated.
The call for the extras was canceled, and instead Cukor filmed a later scene
on the same set, in which Niles tells Norman that the studio is dropping him. Even this fairly simple effort was sabotaged by camera trouble. Thirteen takes were marred by the malfunctioning camera, and the company
was dismissed at six-thirty without having accomplished anything.

The next day, while Cukor, Mason, and Bickford filmed the scene,
Garland, trying on the altered costume, still considered it "unsatisfactory"
and evidently ripped it in a rage and left the studio at four, either furious
or exhausted. According to Del Armstrong: "Judy was nervous and distraught at times-some slight little things would irritate her. She would
throw tantrums every now and then, but not without provocation. She
would never purposely hurt anybody; she was too much of a trouper for
that. She spent too many hard years at MGM being stepped on. Wardrobe
designers, as a whole, want to impose their will on the other person, saying,
`Wait a minute, this is what you're going to wear.' They're a strange lot,
wardrobe people, because they have delusions of grandeur. They think the
picture rises and falls on their contribution to it, never realizing that a lot
of other ingredients go into it too, not just a pretty dress. So I've seen these
confrontations with Judy, and with other stars too. Judy stood up for
herself-it wasn't just because she was extra-emotional or showing off or
being difficult. I don't think she ever showed any hostility unless she had
a good cause."