A Star Is Born: The Making of the 1954 Movie and Its 1983 Restoration (52 page)

On the Monday before our screening, Craig and I were feeling anxious
about Cukor's and Daly's reaction to what we had, especially George's,
because if he didn't like it, that would end the project immediately. I was
still thinking about all this later that night when the telephone rang and
someone's voice told me that George had died. I can't remember who
called; I only remember not being able to say anything, a reaction of
stunned silence. A whole era of sophistication, elegance, good manners, and
civilized behavior seemed suddenly to have vanished with George. Fay and
Gene, who were both extremely close to him, were devastated, and for a
time we considered postponing the screening. But we decided to go ahead.

It was a very depressed group that met at the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre
that Tuesday morning. Fay made a brief speech in which she pointed out
that although we all felt a great sense of loss, we were gathered there with
a remarkable feeling that we had a great opportunity to make a kind of
lasting tribute to George and his artistry.

We went through the screening; the picture looked beautiful, the sound
was impressive, and the virtuosity of what George had done seemed to rouse
everybody from their depression. Three days later Fay called me to say Bob
Daly had agreed to back the project and that we should go ahead full speed.

In order to keep our costs down, Jim Roberts, executive director of the
Academy, suggested going to Eastman Kodak and enlisting its aid. Eastman
had been receiving a great deal of unfavorable publicity about the stability of its product. The longevity of the old color negative had been attested
to in the excellent quality we were getting from the stock footage. We
wanted to put our restored sequences on the new Eastman Kodak print film
#5382, with its vastly improved dye stability-up to thirty years with no
loss of color. Eastman agreed to donate the amount of film we needed to
complete the project properly. That act of generosity freed a large chunk
of our budget, which was then used to restore the stereo track.

This rerecording was being done at the studio and was a time-consuming
and complex task, especially for Craig. The one existing four-track stereo
print was the short version. Over the thirty years of its life, it had weathered
numerous screenings; it was torn and spliced, it had frames missing, and
its metal oxide soundtracks had undergone considerable wear, with a consequent diminution of the high frequencies. Before it could be rerecorded to
obtain a new stereo master, Craig had to go through it foot by foot,
measuring it against the original negative. Where frames were missing, he
inserted the appropriate lengths of blank film; there was a twenty-five-foot
rip down the center of one section which he had to carefully tape over so
as not to lose the four magnetic tracks. After Craig had accomplished this
painstaking task, Bob Buescher, the engineer at the Burbank Studios, took
over the print to transfer the sound to a new magnetic four-track master.
To do this, the sound department had to manufacture special sound heads,
since there were no longer any sound units at the studio that could reproduce the thirty-year-old track. After this was done, the four-track original
print was carefully run past three heads in synchronization with the singletrack sound masters of the long version. Wherever Craig had spliced in
blank film, the recorder picked up the sound from this long version and thus
filled in the "holes" in the stereo master. At the same time, a special
processor "rechanneled" these monaural fillers to give them a pseudo-stereo
sound, matching as closely as possible the stereo sound of the original.

While this was being done at the studio, back at the Academy, D. J.
("Zig") Ziegler of the Academy's Film Department was working on the
reconstruction of the "Lose That Long Face" musical number. She began
looking at the numerous silent takes for this sequence that had been found
in the stock footage vaults. There were close to twenty-five separate takes
on this one number, which had been filmed over a period of several weeks.
The technique for filming was to break the song down into bars; these
sections would be played back on the sound stage and the choreographer/
director would film each section in a separate shot. Some of these shots were done as often as ten times, depending on their complexity and
whether any mistakes were made. Watching this silent material was fascinating, as you could see the physical strain in Garland as the takes wore
on and on. Missteps, miscues, wrong camera moves, and colliding dancers
all caused scenes to be retaken. Zig's job was to match each sequence with
the appropriate musical accompaniment. She had to do this largely by eye,
matching Garland's lip movements with her voice on the track. Matching
the track to the dance section was relatively simple, as the sound effects
on the track dictated what was happening on screen: for example, Garland
splashing in a puddle, tap dancing, being joined by two children for another
section. (For a while we toyed with the idea of using a bit of the takes done
with Garland's dance double, but the difference in technique and style was
too apparent.) Inevitably, what Zig had to work with was inferior to what
had been used in the film originally, and when we looked at the completed
number, while pleased that we had been able to reconstruct it, we all felt
that it was not as good as it should have been.

At this point, I was contacted again by the local theater exhibitor who
knew the collector who supposedly had the original footage of "Lose That
Long Face." Once again, he assured me that it did exist-that he personally had seen it-and after an extensive bit of cajoling, persuading, and
other entreaties he reluctantly told me the man's name, adding that he was
an editorial assistant at the very same Burbank Studios where Craig and I
were working. Suddenly, I realized that if this fellow did indeed have "Lose
That Long Face," then he must have the missing dramatic sections as well,
probably having obtained them all at the same time right there at the
studio. (I still had not given up my conviction that the original negative
material had not been destroyed-that it had been saved, and that somehow it all had fallen into this fellow's hands.)

Craig and I devised a strategy. Knowing that the man was a fanatic about
Garland and A Star Is Born, we would invite him over to the editing room
to see what we were up to. Craig and I felt that this bit of privileged viewing
might dazzle Mr. Elusive Collector. The plan was to enlist his aid and his
knowledge of other collectors who might have the material: that way, we
wouldn't be confronting him directly, but instead would appeal to his love
of film and of this particular movie to help us locate what we needed.

The appointed time arrived, and in the door came a medium-sized man
in his mid-fifties, wearing Levi's and a plaid shirt, balding, with a mustache
and a quiet manner. He was appreciative of our offer to see what we were doing and appropriately enthusiastic about the results. After showing him
the material, I launched into my spiel about how much we wanted to find
the original material; could he, as a collector with wide knowledge of the
field and acquaintanceship with other collectors, give us any help? No
expense would be too great and no questions would be asked.

He sat there on the stool, arms folded, looking at the Moviola, having
stared at it all during my impassioned plea. He said nothing for a moment,
then looked up at me and smiled ruefully and shook his head. "I sure would
like to help you, but I don't know anybody who has this stuff. I've heard
for years that some collectors claim to have it, but I've never seen it and
I don't know anyone who has, except when the movie first came out. I really
can't help you. I wish I could." He looked at me the entire time-straight
in the eye-and I felt that he was telling the truth.

After he left, I put in a call to my source and told him the outcome of
the conversation. He was infuriated, swearing that he'd seen the material.
Alas, all we could do now was hope that eventually, after all the publicity
broke, the material would somehow find its way to us.

Meanwhile, we still had to finish putting the picture together. The
soundtrack, having been rerecorded, was now being re-equalized to restore
to the stereo sound the luster and sonority that had been lost in the transfer.
This was being done on one of the rerecording stages by dubbing editor
Wayne Artman and his staff. At the beginning of their work, they more
or less, I think, considered it just another dubbing job-more of a curiosity
piece than anything else, with no particular creative work needed, as the
track was already mixed and ready for putting to the picture. In my zeal
to make sure that the spectacular sonics of the original not be lost (I still
recalled vividly those tinkling chandeliers at the Bal), I began bird-dogging
Wayne and his crew, second-guessing them, criticizing and otherwise making a nuisance of myself to the point where he almost ordered me off the
stage. The work they were doing was delicate and time-consuming but, to
them, not particularly exciting until one afternoon when they were working
on the section showing Esther on her first day at the studio. Evidently
neither Wayne nor his assistant, Tom Beckart, had seen the film before;
and when the scene of Garland getting weak-kneed on the high studio
bridge flashed on the screen, they sat up in surprise, for the catwalk she
was crossing was right outside their dubbing stage. In fact, the door she
walked through after crossing the bridge was the door immediately to the
right of their dubbing console. After that, A Star Is Born was as much their movie as it was Cukor's, or mine, or Craig's, and they fussed and fretted
over every detail of the sound, striving to make it as close to the original
as modern technology allowed, so that it would show off the full breadth
and depth of the old four-track magnetic process, with its almost palpable
bass impact.

We had been working on all these final details for the better part of a
month; while we labored at the studio, the Academy was orchestrating a
publicity campaign for the announcement of the reconstruction while
simultaneously organizing a series of fund-raising presentations of the film
in six major cities around the country. In Los Angeles, the film would be
presented at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theatre; but it was the plans
for New York that floored me-the picture would premiere at the Radio
City Music Hall! Doug had been in the theater for one of the first performances of Kevin Brownlow's restoration of Napoleon. To hear him tell it,
it was a truly monumental and memorable film evening, and he wanted to
have that experience again, only this time with A Star Is Born. Fay and I
had been seen Napoleon at its Los Angeles opening at the Shrine Auditorium and, along with thousands of others, were dazzled not only by the film
but by its presentation. Memorable nights at the movies, with excitement,
glamour, genuine enthusiasm, and, most important of all, a terrific movie,
are few and far between these days. So when the Academy turned its
collective professionalism loose on the proper publicity and presentation of
A Star Is Born, I watched in admiration.

A series of interviews were arranged for The New York Times, the Los
Angeles Times, Daily Variety, and The Hollywood Reporter to announce
the discovery of the material and the reconstruction of the film. That
happened in April. In May, the first announcements went out that the film
would have its premiere in New York on July 7, 1983, to be followed over
the next few weeks by single evenings in Washington, D.C.; Chicago;
Dallas; and Oakland, California; and by three evenings in Los Angeles. To
me, the Oakland evening was particularly meaningful, as the picture was
to play at that 193os art deco masterpiece the Paramount, a theater wherein
I had spent much of my early life and where I had started my "career" in
film as a doorman in the mid-1950s. (Oakland was chosen instead of San
Francisco because no available theater in that city was as large or as
glamorous as the Paramount.) In each city, the presentation would be in
association with an appropriate film institution. Thus, the film department
of the Museum of Modern Art would co-sponsor the Radio City Music Hall presentation; the American Film Institute would co-host in Washington,
D.C.; the Chicago Film Festival in Chicago; the USA Film Festival in
Dallas; and the Pacific Film Archive would co-sponsor the Oakland Paramount event. In Los Angeles, of course, for all three evenings, the Academy
would present the picture in association with Warner Bros. All the proceeds
from each event would go toward film-preservation projects of the cooperating institutions.

Why open the picture in New York, not Los Angeles, the home of
legendary premieres? Because of the unfortunate truth that, barring an
earthquake, a fire, a plane crash, or an assassination, the Eastern press pays
practically no attention to anything that happens in Los Angeles. The plan
was for a splashy New York opening that would make headlines across the
country and be picked up by all the major print and electronic media.

Warner Bros. commissioned a new poster for the film by noted graphic
artist Richard Amsel. His four-color design reproduced the original classic
image of Garland, hands framing her face, with a wistful look on her
face-in the film it's a caricature movement in the "Someone at Last"
number, where she announces, "Now, here comes a big, fat close-up." All
the humor and irony removed, it now became the dominant advertising
image for the film, concentrating on Garland to the exclusion of any other
idea of the film: no music, no spectacle, no drama-nothing but the face
of Garland with searchlights coming out of the background behind her
head.

After the first news stories broke and the dates were announced for the
picture's screenings, we started the final phase of work to ready the film
for its official unveiling. The soundtrack had been rerecorded and now had
to be meticulously trimmed to match the cuts we had made in our working
copy. The stills sections needed a final touching-up. They were given a
slight color tint under Gene Allen's supervision to more closely integrate
the material into the body of what already existed. Fades, dissolves, and
other optical devices to link all this disparate material together had to be
carefully devised, and some of the stills sequences needed to be reshot
because of technical difficulties. Lize and her husband, Alan, were leaving
for China and a Ping-Pong tournament, but she had arranged for Eric
Durst, another animation expert, to come in and help us finish up the
details.