The Star (1952 film)

The Star

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Stuart Heisler
Produced by Bert E. Friedlob
Written by Katherine Albert
Dale Eunson
Starring Bette Davis
Sterling Hayden
Natalie Wood
Warner Anderson
Minor Watson
June Travis
Music by Victor Young
Cinematography Ernest Laszlo
Distributed by 20th Century Fox (original)
Associated Artists Productions (re-issue)
Release dates
  • 1952 (1952)
Running time
 89 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Box office $1 million (US)[1]

The Star is a 1952 American drama film directed by Stuart Heisler and starring Bette Davis, Sterling Hayden and Natalie Wood. The plot tells the story of a washed up actress who is desperate to restart her career. Even though film was a critical and commercial failure, Bette Davis received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Plot

Oscar Award winning star Margaret "Maggie" Elliot (Bette Davis) is a bankrupt actress unwilling to accept her new non-wealthy reality. She is in denial, and confident she can build herself up again and somehow fix her career. After she gets another big deception striving to get that last one good role, she gets drunk, is arrested for DUI, and spends a night in jail. She is bailed out by Jim Johannsen (Sterling Hayden), a young former actor whom she helped in the past. Jim loves her and, helped by Margaret’s daughter Gretchen (Natalie Wood), tries to make Margaret see that her big screen days as a famous actress are already over. She manages to get a screen test for a role in a film she’d always wanted to play. She is offered a screen test for a supporting role which she accepts, trusting that if she plays that character as a sexy young woman she might be able to get the best part, but it does not work out.

At a Hollywood party, she is offered a role in a new film about a falling star who can’t face the fact that it’s all over. This new script is dedicated to washed-up actors and actresses who are obsessed by their former glory, by what they used to look like, what kind of an impression they’d make, demanding, bribing, ambitious for power, to stay on top, those who can’t look down and can't accept that their moment of glory is over and that the world has passed them by; this script changes Margaret’s life. It finally makes her realize that her film career is indeed over, and she returns home to the open arms of Jim, and the love and acceptance of her daughter, from whom Margaret had previously desperately attempted to shield her own stalled career.

Cast

References

  1. ↑ 'The Top Box Office Hits of 1953', Variety, January 13, 1954
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