A Star Is Born: The Making of the 1954 Movie and Its 1983 Restoration (27 page)

"It really was a group effort," remembers Leavitt. "We all got together
on it. There weren't too many problems as far as I was concerned; I just
went with what the art director and the designer thought. Cukor was
number one, naturally-he was the guy who thought up a lot of wonderful
ideas. Working with a man like that was a great feeling-his ideas were
usually unusual. Since none of us knew anything about CinemaScope, there
were some problems that we had to straighten out, and that's where the
group effort came in. No kidding around there-whatever happened, the
other man took over and helped you out. Gene Allen was the biggest help
to me. He was a very fine art director; he and I always worked together,
talking about compositions and color. This being my first picture in
CinemaScope, it didn't even give me a chance to breathe-it was like being
pushed into a fire. I had to find out about the lenses. I had a lot of problems
with those lenses; I didn't even know what they did. With CinemaScope,
you'd use a two-inch lens for crowd scenes, which brings everything in
closer to the audience. Now in ordinary film photography, you'd use this
lens only for photographing close-ups. Much of the time, I'd find out what
these lenses did just by seeing it on the screen in the rushes. That's what
I mean by being pushed into something that you weren't ready for. I had
to learn to be a photographer all over again. Without Gene Allen and all
these other people working with you, it never would have come out as good
as it did."

If the new shape of CinemaScope pushed the imaginations of Allen, Hoyningen-Huene, and Leavitt into new areas, the use of Eastmancolor
taxed their combined ingenuities to the fullest. The wide range and delicacy of color available with the sophisticated Technicolor three-strip
method were replaced by the more primitive and garish effects of singlestrip WarnerColor, with its much more restricted palette. Allen relates: "It
was a new system with all of its built-in problems. You didn't have the
separation of colors we were used to. We didn't have the grays and the
interesting rich blacks and darks. It was kind of muddied up: darks were
too dark; where light faded off, it went to green; blues would pop through,
so that even on the grayest day the skies would be the brightest blue.
Anything that was a cool gray turned blue. And the color was hard-it
didn't have the richness and the softness that Technicolor had. If the
exposure wasn't absolutely right on, everything would go red. We really had
to control what we did and be very careful. It was a moody picture at times,
and Cukor wanted to play it for mood. But when you did, the light fell off
in the dark; instead of going to rich darks that you can control, they became
shadings of green, and this was a problem.

"Then we found that the film, even with all our efforts at controlling
the color, was just too overcolored, because the Eastmancolor was erratic.
So Cukor, Huene, and myself started a process right then of eliminating
color; we damned near did a black-and-white picture, except for little
accents of color. But then when we did color scenes, where there had to
be a lot of color, then we did great color, all controlled and related and in
good taste."

For Leavitt, who was used to the idiosyncrasies of Eastmancolor, there
were fewer problems: "As far as the colors were concerned, they took care
of themselves-all I had to do was light it. I went with the designing and
the art direction. But they can't help you on the lighting; that you have
to do yourself-as far as the cameraman is concerned, the lighting is your
own, nobody takes that away. Like the art director-nobody takes away his
sets-or the designer-you can't take away his colors."

On this latter point, Leavitt was evidently unaware of an incident that
occurred just about this time, as the changeover to CinemaScope and
WarnerColor was getting under way. The shooting schedule called for a
sequence in which Esther reports to the publicity offices of the Niles Studio
on her first day under contract. Sid Luft relates: "Judy was in a red dress,
and they had the interior of the hallway painted red, and I saw this and
I said, `I don't give a goddamn what Gene Allen or George says-it won't work. Judy in a red dress going through these halls-you'll have the red
mixing with the red-it won't work.' So I ordered the wall repainted. The
next morning George calls me up and says 'What the hell is going on? The
walls are gray.' I said, 'George, you've gotta shoot it that way, I ordered it
done.' He says, 'You did.' 'Yes, I did. I didn't want to take the risk of a
whole day's shooting, of having the red bleed into the red-it would've
been a mess. That's the way it is, George' And I hung up. We worked it
out later, because it turned out great anyway."

Evidently Warner, nervous at the amount of time and money being
spent on reshooting and the expensive experimentation that was being
conducted at this point, told Luft to exercise his powers as producer and
watch the costs, not let the experimenters go overboard. "I do remember
that incident," relates Gene Allen. "I can't remember the details, but I do
know that nobody changes the color of the set-no producer, no Jack
Warner, anybody. If they're going to do it, they do it through George
Cukor, and then down through his art department. And that's who would
make changes. So I think the set was repainted back the way it was." The
evidence in the finished film, however, indicates that Luft had his way, for
the hallway walls in the scene are gray.

Luft's seeming high-handedness in this could not have endeared him to
Cukor, nor did Luft's interference in what Cukor felt to be his own area
of expertise: the printing and viewing of the daily rushes. Cukor's directorial approach was to shoot a scene as many times as he thought necessary
to obtain the nuances, the details that might make it a little better each
time it was done. This might mean twelve or more takes before he was
satisfied. The problem then was in trying to decide which take was best,
and the only way to do that was by looking at them. Normal industry
procedure was to decide on the set which two takes were to be printed for
viewing in the rushes and which were to be held to be printed later, in the
event that something was not quite right with some aspect of the chosen
takes.

"I had a number of run-ins with George," recalls Luft. "He was printing
up too much film, and Jack would complain to me, 'Jesus, he's gonna bust
you-print this one, print that one.' So I said to George, 'You can't do
this-we're gonna go way over budget.' He said, 'I must protect myself.'
I said, 'I know, George, but don't ask them to print it; hold it. If we don't
like what we've got, then we'll print it.' He was just protecting himself too
goddamn much."

Russ Llewellyn recalls the upshot of all this: "Cukor walked into the
projection room [to look at the rushes] and we rolled the film-he'd see
it. The next one came on-he'd see it. Then the lights came on. Cukor
says, `Where's the other one?' 'Oh,' I'd say, 'we haven't got it.' `You
haven't got it? Why?' 'Well, the production office wouldn't okay it.'
And he said, 'Get all of my dailies in here or I won't be back to see
them.' And he walked out. They were trying to cheat on him, thinking
he'd forgotten about it. But, by God, he went out and he got everything
he wanted."

Luft's attempts at trying to keep a firm hand on the film were not
helped by the prevailing attitude toward him by the production crew, all
of whom were professionals and loyal to Cukor. It was an attitude that
emanated from the very top echelons of the studio, starting with Jack
Warner, who had unkind words for Luft in his autobiography, My First
Hundred Years in Hollywood (for which Luft later sued Warner and
claims to have received a substantial settlement). According to Russ
Llewellyn, "the only contact I'd ever have with Luft was when I'd run
into him at the racetrack all the time. But never on the set. No. He was
scared of Cukor. Cukor wasn't going to take his advice on anything. He
knew nothing about pictures . . . he didn't know a camera from a dissolve." The unfortunate and inaccurate perception of most people involved with the film was that Luft was producer by virtue of the fact that
he was Garland's husband, and as such he was not considered a creative
individual, not a full-fledged member of the closely knit, inbred little
community that Hollywood really was. He was reviled, condescended to,
and generally politely ignored, though never to his face-this despite the
fact that the entire project was his idea, and despite the fact that he was
the only person who was able to exert some kind of control over the
mercurial and temperamental Garland.

Lauren Bacall, who knew them both at this period, is one of the few
people in Hollywood who saw Luft honestly: "Sid was a wheeler-dealer, but
not a bad guy. He and Judy were crazy about each other. He was very good
for her; he gave her a reason to get it all together. He gave her a semblance
of family life. And he always took care of his children-he was devoted to
them. Judy had a hard time dealing with life. She was, God knows, talented-fun to be around, bright and witty, very funny, very smart-a little
cuckoo, but who isn't? She had lots of fears-she was terrified of going on
stage; she was ruthless sometimes in her dealings with people. But she needed constant reassurance; whatever quirks Sid may have had, he was the
one who helped her get through. He took care of her through some rough
times that could not have been easy for him."

It wasn't until mid-November that the production had absorbed the
changes, the clashes, and the uncertainty and found its momentum. In
rapid succession Cukor led his people all over the Warners studio and the
Los Angeles locations, filming the early part of the story, dealing mainly
with Norman and Esther's initial scenes together-largely the medium
shots and close-up work for the Shrine Auditorium dressing rooms at the
benefit. The art department had decided to make the studio itself double
for Oliver Niles Studios, and Cukor was able to use the actual buildings and
grounds of Warner Bros. to good advantage, contrasting the intimacy of
the Spanish-style office buildings with the massive, all-encompassing sound
stages. Instead of using the departments as they actually were, he found
aspects of the decor that suited his ideas for the script. The wardrobe
building, with its revolving iron gate, became the publicity headquarters
because Cukor liked the idea of Esther spending her first twenty minutes
at the studio being hustled through a series of encounters with the ladies
in the publicity department ("Oh, hello, dear. I was expecting a blonde.
I don't know why-glad to have you with us"), in the photo gallery ("Get
out of the way!"), with Matt Libby in his office ("Urn. Glad to have you
with us. Would you like to meet the big boss? Probably the only chance
you'll get"), and with Oliver Niles himself in his projection room ("Oh,
hello, dear. Glad to have you with us. Good luck to you, dear"). At the
conclusion of all this, Esther finds herself descending the staircase outside
the projection room, ending up exactly opposite the same flight of stairs she
had entered by. Shaking her head in exasperation, she turns to leave and
finds herself caught in the revolving iron gate.

A warehouse opposite the commissary was redesigned and became the
payroll window wherein Esther Blodgett first learns her new name from
a payroll clerk. "New here? Okay, let's see. Oh, yes. Your name is Vicki
Lester-V-I-C-K-I L-E-S-T-E-R. Move on, please." Esther's stunned reaction to this originally gave way to bemused acceptance: "It could have
been worse-could have been Beverly Wilshire." But Cukor deleted the
gag, preferring to concentrate on Esther's appreciation of the nonsense of
the situation ("Vicki Lester.?'), her reluctant acceptance of it ("Vicki
Lester ..."), and, finally, her insouciant shrug of resignation. The progression showed Garland at her light-comedy best-her facial expressions, her inflections, and her body language are superb at revealing Esther's
naivete, her bewilderment, her momentary outrage, and her sense of
humor.

The sound building became the Niles projection booth, where the great
man is watching one of his studio's latest-a Western. (The actual film
Bickford was watching was The Charge at Feather River, the second Warners 3-D adventure starring Guy Madison.) One of the executive offices
stood in for Norman Maine's dressing room. Several sequences took place
here, but perhaps the most important was the scene where Norman sees
Esther made up as a glamorous floozie for her screen test, hurries her off
to his quarters, and in a light and tentative manner eliminates all the artifice
the studio has loaded her down with to make up for her alleged shortcomings ("My ears are too big and my nose is all wrong and I've got no chin").
Slathering gobs of cream on her face, he begins transforming her; and as
the end result of all his labors, Esther takes on a wholesome twenty-fiveyear-old's radiance. To get this effect with Garland, Del Armstrong lightened her face, widened her eyes, and gave her a full-lipped look that made
the actress look truly lovely. The effect was completed by HoyningenHuene, who devised a light-pink key light which he mounted three feet
away from her face; this smoothed out the lines around her nose and filled
in the hollowness of her cheeks, giving her a soft, virginal quality.

In the third week of November, while a second unit filmed the action
for the puppet commercial, Bellamy and Llewellyn led twenty transportation units to the seedy Bunker Hill section of downtown Los Angeles. In
the script, Esther, having left the band and unable to find a singing job,
goes to work as a carhop and moves to a dingy rooming house in a decaying
area. This would be the first of two trips the company would make to this
location. Today would be spent filming scenes of Esther's dejection and
Norman's search for her throughout the building while she is on the roof
drying her hair. Throughout the film Norman is seen driving a 1953
Lincoln Capri convertible, but for this sequence he was fitted out with a
silver Mercedes-Benz, befitting a star of his stature, and also for script
purposes, so that the neighborhood children could swarm all over it, blowing the horn, arousing Maine's anger and Esther's attention. Fog and heavy
smog prevented much exterior work, so the company was compelled to pick
up the necessary shots when it returned for the scene of Esther and
Norman's awkward reunion. The landlady, her friends, and their children
disrupt the two with their demands for autographs and photographs, and when Norman becomes angry, the pack turns on him and becomes indignantly nasty ("Say, just who do you think you are, Mr. Norman Maine?").