A Star Is Born - 1954

Actress Judy Garland, in Scene from Film "A Star Is Born" with Actor James Mason Premium Photographic Print
18 in. x 24 in.
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A Star is Born is the superb 1954 musical, acclaimed by many as the greatest Hollywood musical ever made. Judy Garland's intense performance as the main character, probably the finest of her entire career, illuminates the film based upon Moss Hart's screenplay. It is a remake of William Wellman's original 1937 film by the same name that starred Janet Gaynor. The third version was a poorly made A Star is Born (1976) with Barbra Streisand as a pop singer named Esther Hoffman and Kris Kristofferson as John Norman Howard - a rock star.

The film's director, George Cukor, had also directed the film What Price Hollywood? (1932) that is considered the source of all three film versions. Cukor ironically commented upon Hollywood and how it only cared for its own by strategically positioning three official Hollywood ceremonies at the beginning, middle, and end of the film. Each one chronicled the downfall of a talented, but alcoholic Hollywood movie star (James Mason). [Actors who rejected the role included Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant (who accepted but then declined), Gary Cooper, Marlon Brando, and Montgomery Clift.]

The emotionally-intense film also hinted at the real-life troubles and problems (five marriages) in the career of its female star - a victim of the Hollywood studio system - during the film's making. Garland's realistic performance reflected the upheavals in her own personal life that led to her death from a drug overdose - and ironically, this film's co-star James Mason delivered her funeral's eulogy in New York in 1969. Predicted to win the Best Actress Oscar, Garland was devastated by the loss to Grace Kelly in an lesser role in The Country Girl.

North By Northwest - 1959

North by Northwest, Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, 1959 Giclee Print

Bass, Saul
9 in. x 12 in.
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North by Northwest (1959) is a suspenseful, classic Alfred Hitchcock caper thriller. The box-office hit film is one of the most entertaining movies ever made and one of Hitchcock's most famous suspense/mystery stories in his entire career. One of the film's posters advertised: "Only Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock ever gave you so much suspense in so many directions." The film paired debonair Cary Grant with director Hitchcock for the fourth and last time: their earlier collaborations were in Suspicion (1941), Notorious (1946), and To Catch a Thief (1955). And Hitchcock also chose Oscar-winning Eva Marie Saint as the blonde heroine (to the studio's and Grant's surprise) - one of many such female characters in his film repertoire.

The film's themes include many plot devices and elements typical of Hitchcock films (especially The 39 Steps (1935) and Saboteur (1942)) - predominantly the themes of mistaken identity for the innocent, ordinary, 'Wrong Man' hero. Another of its themes is false pretenses and survival in 20th Century America during the Cold War. [The Leo G. Carroll character in the film - the head of the American Intelligence Agency, was possibly modeled after two 1950s real-life figures: Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother Allen W. Dulles, head of the CIA.] Arthur Hiller's Hitchcockian Silver Streak (1976) paid homage to this film, with a similar train ride, dangerous circumstances, pursuit by police, and a mysterious woman.