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Tuesday’s Overlooked Film: The Star (1952)

Bette Davis in "The Star" (1952)

On the day the Oscar nominations go out, I decided to take a look at what might be by today’s standards, a forgotten film. The Star, featuring Bette Davis and directed by Stuart Heisler, is a cautionary tale about what is on the other side of a hugely successful, award-winning career.

For Bette Davis at this stage in her professional life, the film must have felt like a semi-autobiographical sketch. Made two years after her ‘comeback’ in the classic All About Eve, this would prove to be one of her last fully rounded roles.

For her role as the down-on-her luck award-winning actress, Davis received the ninth of her ten Academy Award nominations [she would receive one more for Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)].

The Star is the story of a has-been actress (Margaret Elliot) who is willing to sacrifice anything and anymore for another shot at the big time. Left to suffer in her wake: her teenaged daughter Gretchen (Natalie Wood), from whom she shields her professional and financial woes, and Jim Johannsen (Sterling Hayden), a young actor who has great affection for Margaret in spite of herself.

Sterling Hayden and Bette Davis

If you have not seen The Star, you are in luck (as long as you have TCM). It will be shown on Sunday, February 26th (Oscar™ Night) at 8:00PM Eastern Time.

Please visit Todd Mason’s Sweet Freedom blog every Tuesday for more overlooked/forgotten films.

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Tuesday’s Overlooked Film: Me and Orson Welles (2008/9)

For this week’s session (as part of Todd Mason‘s weekly ‘Overlooked’ Films series), I have chosen Richard Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles from 2008/9.

The film stars Zac Efron, Claire Danes and Christian McKay as Orson Welles.

The year is 1937 when 17-year Richard Samuels (Efron) and theater wunderkind Orson Welles (McKay) meet via a chance encounter in front of the Mercury Theater with Welles; Welles is in the process of producing Shakespeare’s Julius Cesar. As a result of the encounter, Welles offers the overly eager Richard a role in the play. The film then chronicles the progress of the production; at the same time we are privy to a coming of age story – courtesy of the backstory involving Samuel and aspiring actress Sonja Jones (Danes).

Whenever an actor is portraying a historical figure, especially one who is of such a stature as Orson Welles, it is easy to make immediate comparisons to that person. As Welles, McKay’s portrayal occasionally falls into the category of “very good impression,” but it was fun to watch him take on the Hollywood legend’s bombastic nature and swagger. In a supporting role, Claire Danes does a fine job as the ‘girl who got away.’

To date, I have basically dismissed Zac Efron as just another teenybopper pretty boy. While I will need to see more in his body of work; here in Me and Orson Welles he delivers but never fully captures the spirit of (what’s in my head for the character) the doe-eyed fish out of water to the world of theater. Maybe his turn in Lee Daniels’ upcoming The Paperboy will prove or disprove my theory.

This film is another solid mark on Richard Linklater’s already varied and diverse CV, which includes a couple of my favorite films in recent memory, including School of Rock and the double-bill of Before Sunset/Before Sunrise. 

I would not elevate Me and Orson Welles to that status, but it is a film watching to make up your mind about.

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Tuesday’s Overlooked Film: So Young So Bad (1950)

Boy we have come a long way from the glory of Casablanca, Paul Henreid. Labeled by my Netflix recommendation, this film, So Young, So Bad is a ‘Gritty Independent Fight the System ‘ movie and with a synopsis like this:

Aghast at the cruel punishments handed out by Mr. Riggs (Cecil Clovelly) and his pitiless assistant, Mrs. Beuhler (Grace Coppin), at their all-girls reform school, forward-thinking psychologist Dr. Jason (Paul Henreid) tries to take control of the institution. But when an inmate turns up dead, Jason suspects a setup, and now the girls themselves must reveal the truth about their treatment. Bernard Vorhaus directs this drama.

Source: Netflix

This film has the distinction of being (1) the feature film debut of a 19-year old Rosita Moreno – who would later be known as Rita Moreno and (2) one of the earliest roles for actress Anne Francis.

So Young, So Bad is a story told in flashback by Paul Henreid’s Dr. Jason, a psychiatrist working in a reform school for girls with hopes of making a difference in their lives. In the process he gains insight into the way the girls are exploited and abused by the very system enlisted to reforming them.

Not that I am not saying So Young So Bad is an all-out classic which time has forgotten. Rather, here is a little perspective – at the time of this film’s release, there were essentially two tiers of pictures that received wide distribution: the A-film and the B-film. Because the studios were still in control of most of the film production, independent features did not have the artistic distinction or polish that many have in our modern thinking of this area of cinema.

I suppose the intent of this film was a sort of ‘message’ film. In fact, it was released one day after a very similar film with a similar message (also featured on this blog), Caged. Caged starred Eleanor Parker as a woman irrevocably hardened by the prison system.

In its own way, as the film poster indicates, this attempts to explain WHY the girls are the way they are.

On a side note, Paul Henreid made a lot of money from this film; against the advice of his advisors, he put up 50% of the financing for the film and in return, received what he said was more money than he did for any other film during his film career.

Source: Wikipedia

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