A Star Is Born: The Making of the 1954 Movie and Its 1983 Restoration (28 page)

As Bellamy recalls, the production had begun to hum along quickly and
efficiently when suddenly, just as work was finishing at the downtown
location, "I got a call about two or three in the morning and it was Judy
and she said, `Earl, I don't feel well and I won't be able to get in tomorrow.'
I said, `Fine,' and then around six-thirty or seven I called James Mason and
told him that Judy was ill and that he'd have to come in and start the day
and work the whole day. I must say, he was absolutely a perfect gentleman
every time this happened; he never quibbled about it at all. He said, `Fine,
I'll be there,' and he was always there on time, always knew what he was
going to do. You never heard any complaints from James; he was very
receptive and very happy to do it. So, as a result, it was smooth and we kept
right on shooting without any delays."

During Garland's absence, the company reshot much of the material
that had been done earlier, before the changeover to CinemaScope, then
moved on to new sequences that did not need the actress. These included
the expensive setup wherein Niles is called out to Norman's set because of
the actor's drunkenness. To film it, as before, Cukor and crew made use
of the standing set of a Chinese junk on the Warner back lot, peopling it
with seventy-five Oriental extras and a small number of actors playing
technicians and other film personnel. The scene involved a long traveling
shot of Mason and Bickford talking as they walked to the set, whereupon
Norman went into action as a swashbuckling pirate swinging across a group
of extras with a cutlass between his teeth. The shot was made even more
complex by the extras and the other actors, who were disoriented by the
presence of two camera crews, one real, one fake. With two cameras, two
sound booms, and two groups of technicians rushing about, the extras and
the crews began straying into the picture, much to everyone's confusion.
After some brainstorming, it was decided to simply mark off the boundaries
of the set with white tape and to tie colored markings on the real camera.
This idea was used throughout the rest of the picture whenever there were
sequences involving moviemaking.

Garland was ill for four days; on her return, she refilmed the scene in
Esther's room at the Oleander Arms. This time Leavitt assured Cukor that
it could be done his way, but it still proved difficult. Work started at io:oo
a.m. and finally finished at 5:45. Even with the lower light levels that could
be used with the single-strip WarnerColor negative, the photography was exceedingly time-consuming and exacting because of the restricted color
sensitivity of the color negative, especially in areas of dark and shadow. It
was like driving with your eyes closed, as there was no accurate way of
telling what, if anything, would show up on the film. According to Earl
Bellamy, "Mr. Cukor wanted the scene lit just like it was candlelight. I
never felt so sorry for Sammy as [when] he tried to light the thing; you could
see the beads of perspiration start out on him. It was the lowest key that
color could be exposed in-a really very, very low light level-and he turned
to me at the end of the day and said, 'All I can tell you is I hope we've
got an image.' He was at the lab the next morning when it opened and he
ran the scene before he ever came to the set; I was waiting for him when
he walked in, and he said, 'I think it's gonna work, Earl.' That night we
ran it for Mr. Cukor in the dailies, and it was beautiful. To this day it's
one of the most gorgeous shots I've ever seen."

The next day, the company moved back to the apartment motel at
Crescent Heights and Fountain which would be used for exteriors of the
Oleander Arms. Here were shot Esther's farewell to the band, Esther
waiting by the pool for Norman's call, and a later sequence in which
Norman, returned from his six-week location jaunt, quizzes the landlady,
trying to find what has become of Esther. Then, cast, crew, and equipment
moved back to downtown Los Angeles to complete the sequence of Norman and Esther's reunion on the rooftop of the boardinghouse. This was
a particularly grueling day of shooting: Cukor had done seventeen takes of
the scene between Norman and the landlady and thirteen of Esther saying
goodbye to the band; the relatively uncomplicated scenes on the rooftop
required fifty-three takes to satisfy Cukor. The day had been chilly, and
Garland had to play her scenes on the rooftop in a bra and shorts, as it was
supposed to be a warm summer day. Not surprisingly, Bellamy received
another middle-of-the-night call from the actress, saying she was not feeling
well and would not be in the next day.

Fortunately, the schedule called for filming scenes on location at the
Santa Anita racetrack, and Garland was not needed. Once again, Bellamy
dispatched a caravan of twenty-six trucks, vans, and cars from the studio
at 6:oo. The production staff followed at 7:00; James Mason and Jack
Carson, the principal actors for the day's scenes, left at 7:45; and the bit
players and seventy-five extras from Central Casting left the studio at 8:00.

On the casting of these smaller parts, Earl Bellamy relates: "At the start
of shooting, Irene Burns, Mr. Cukor's secretary, would give me a list of names and say, `Earl, these are some of Mr. Cukor's friends, and if you
could use them, he would appreciate it,' so whenever I had a small part that
needed a good face or a good character bit, I would just see to it that Mr.
Cukor's friends worked." In the case of A Star Is Born, this was to the
picture's advantage, for, as Cukor explained in a memo to Luft and the
assistant directors, "I would like to make it a practice [with this film] to
cast some players both in bit roles and in crowd shots ... to create the
impression that studio life in Hollywood is made up of a comparatively
small group of people who constantly cross paths in both business and social
activities." Many of Cukor's friends were actors, frequently older performers whose careers had peaked long ago and who were now relegated to doing
bits or "atmosphere" parts or an occasional speaking role. For the Santa
Anita sequence, Bellamy gave small parts to Gertrude Astor, one of the
great beauties of the silent screen, and Pat O'Malley, who had started his
film career with the Edison stock company in 1907, rising to become a
prominent leading man in the 1920s. Cukor took care not only of his old
friends but of their children, too: Ethel Barrymore's son Sam Colt (grandnephew and namesake of the Samuel Colt who invented the Colt revolver)
had been working in small parts for most of his career-a career that he
had gone into against his mother's wishes and which was largely undistinguished. He and the two other veterans were given "speaking bits"-bit
parts with a line or two. In this particular scene, they played people who
either had worked with Norman Maine or knew him socially but were now
snubbing him or brushing him off after his humiliation at the Academy
Awards ceremony.

The scene itself involved physical violence, rare in a Cukor film: Libby,
encountering Maine at the bar, insults him, finally pushing Norman's pride
too far when he sneers at him, "You fixed yourself up pretty well-you can
live off your wife now." Norman lashes out at him, and Libby punches him,
knocking him down, at which point a crowd gathers, commenting in disgust,
"Oh, it's just Norman Maine" ... "He's drunk again" ... "He's been drunk
for years" ... "How does Vicki stand him?" ... "She must feel sorry for
him." As the next race is announced, they disperse, Libby nonchalantly
strolls away, and Norman, left at the bar, orders a double scotch, his first in
months. As he downs it, the physical and mental turmoil of what he just
experienced makes his entire body shake and cringe in humiliation and
revulsion. All of this had to be carefully worked out-action, staging, camera
movement, and timing-with both principals and extras.

Norman's entrance down the grand staircase and his scene with Colt,
Astor, and O'Malley was filmed twelve times before Cukor• moved on to
the next and most crucial part, the confrontation between Maine and
Libby at the bar. This involved a delicate bit of timing, as the camera was
behind the bar, shooting out toward the lounge. The action called for
Mason to walk over to the bar, sit down, order a ginger ale, and have a
short bit of dialogue with the bartender, then turn just as Libby sits down
next to him. It was delicate because Carson walked into camera range as
Norman began his conversation with the bartender: Mason's back was to
Carson, and he was far enough away so that Carson could not hear what
was being said and, without hearing the dialogue, could not time his
arrival to coincide with Maine's turning around. "We'd use cue lights for
a situation like that," relates Bellamy. "Normally the director would cue
the actor, but Mr. Cukor would get so involved in the scene that he
would forget to press the cue light, so it was up to me to work it out. I
remember I had Carson stop midway in his walk and look at something
he was holding; when the dialogue reached the point where Jack should
start walking, I'd push the button, he sees the light, puts whatever it was
back in his pocket, walks to the bar and sits down just as Mason turns
around."

After two days away, Garland returned and recorded the songs "It's a New
World" and "Someone at Last." At the same time, on a set duplicating
the famous Cocoanut Grove nightclub in the Ambassador Hotel, Cukor
filmed a scene that was both lavish and intimate-intimate because it was
basically a duologue between Norman and Bruno, the maitre d', as Maine
tries to find "the little dark girl who sings with the Glenn Williams Orchestra" who saved him from making a fool of himself earlier in the evening.

"The Williams Orchestra finishes at one o'clock," Bruno explains.
"They finished about an hour ago. Then the rhumba band takes over." But
he does give Maine a clue: "The bands that play here, the musicians, they
go to a little place on Sunset Boulevard after they finish here. Maybe she's
there. Crazy people, Mr. Maine. They blow their heads off here all night
and then instead of going to bed they go to this place and blow their heads
off for themselves-for nothing."

As the scene continues, Maine asks, "Is there anyone here I know?" and
Bruno, who obviously knows Maine and his tastes well, proceeds to call his attention to some of the more available ladies in the room: "There's a new
little girl from Paramount-very pretty, Mr. Maine."

"She's with someone."

"Only her agent. He'll be glad to leave."

"Too young, Bruno. I had a very `young' week last week. Not worth it.
Anyone else?"

"Miss Sheldon. She's very beautiful tonight, Mr. Maine."

"No. She hit me over the head with a bottle."

"Yes, I remember. It happened right here. But I thought everything was
all-"

"No. They only hit me once.... Who's the little girl in the green dress
over there?"

"No, Mr. Maine. Pasadena. Let it alone."

It was one of Moss Hart's finest creations: a sharply observed, witty, and
sophisticated little gem of a scene that subtly pointed up Norman's womanizing, his loneliness, and his boredom while simultaneously giving a quick
and amusing glimpse into the flesh-market aspect of the Hollywood social
and nightlife scene. Cukor staged it in one long, continuous moving shot,
as Norman and Bruno move among the trees edging the dance floor, with
the orchestra and the dancing couples in the background, and the foreground peopled with isolated groups of diners, drinkers, and talkers. Cukor
had picked a little-known character actor named Frank Puglia for the part
of Bruno, and he and Mason rehearsed the scene while Leavitt and his crew
lit the set, which took almost an hour, because the palm trees kept getting
in the way of the actors and the camera. Another half-hour was spent
moving some of the trees, then relighting the set, placing the bit people,
rehearsing them in their action, and getting the dancers to stay within
camera range as the camera movements were set and the blocking for
Mason and Puglia was worked out, so that their dialogue was carefully and
naturally delivered as they moved across the room, weaving in and out and
around the palm trees. The rhumba band had been recruited from the local
Zenda ballroom and was playing live music instead of prerecorded as was
the usual custom. This led to further complications, as the music tended
to drown out the dialogue, so some time was spent getting the band to play
down to an acceptable level. By the time more trees had been added, and
all had been repainted, the ninety-five extras carefully placed and rehearsed,
then more lighting and camera adjustments made and a break taken for
lunch, it was three p.m. before Cukor and Leavitt took the first shot. After that, the scene was retaken fifteen times, mainly because Frank Puglia had
so much difficulty with his lines, coordinating them with his actions and
the bits of business that Cukor had devised: unobtrusively producing a
lighter for Maine's cigarette while simultaneously scanning the room to try
to find him a suitable companion. Cukor wanted a specific kind of smooth,
near-obsequious performance from Puglia, and the veteran actor was having
trouble achieving the shadings and nuances that Cukor kept urging him to
strive for. Finally, the thirteenth take was completed with no mishaps. The
scene was done twice more, and Cukor finally was satisfied with take 15.
By the time they finished, at 5:oo, almost two pages of dialogue had been
filmed-three and a half minutes on screen.

The next day was Thanksgiving, and the holiday marked the end of the
first complete month of shooting on A Star Is Born. In thirty-five days of
filming, the production was nineteen days behind schedule, and Warners
had spent nearly $1 million in filming 33 of the script's 123 scenes, just over
an hour's worth of usable footage, with roughly three quarters of the script
still to be photographed.

The next major sequence found Cukor, Garland, Mason, and company
traveling ninety miles north of Los Angeles to the tiny town of Piru to film
the elopement and marriage of Norman and Esther and their pursuit by
Libby. Once again it was Cukor's request for the offbeat and the realistic
that led them on location when the scene could easily have been done on
the back lot at the studio. Relates Bellamy: "Mr. Cukor wanted to go away,
far away from Los Angeles, because it was kind of a secret affair, their
marriage, and we needed a town that was so small that nobody in the place
would recognize them, nobody would even know they were there. During
preproduction, the location manager would go through the script with us,
and we'd all decide what should be done on location. In those days, the
location manager had photos of places, arranged by category-you know,
restaurants, hotels, small towns-and he'd bring in pictures of all these
different locations that might be what we wanted. He came in and showed
us this little street in this little town. Mr. Cukor liked the look of the place,
so before the picture started, Mr. Cukor, Gene Allen-everybody-we all
drove out there. Mr. Cukor liked the naturalness of the place, he felt it
really added to the situation, so we decided that was it, what we had to do,
and how to do it, and that's where we shot it."