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A Star is Born

Screening on Film
Directed by George Cukor.
With Judy Garland, James Mason, Jack Carson.
US, 1954, 35mm, color, 154 min.

An alcoholic movie star stumbles into the act of a young showgirl. The two fall in love while his career wanes and hers is on the rise. A comeback vehicle for Garland, this much darker reworking of Cukor’s own What Price Hollywood? features stellar turns from both leads and a collection of songs by Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin which would become Garland standards. After premiering the full-length 180-minute version of the film, Warner Brothers decided to cut almost thirty minutes of footage for fear that audiences would not tolerate the longer version.

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