Lack of good storyline.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Tawdry, B-ish melodrama independently made but released by 20th Century Fox, this 1952 potboiler presents itself as a searing look at a movie star in free-fall, and seems to relish the parallels between Margaret Elliott and star Bette Davis. Margaret's phenomenally self-centered, self-pitying, and self-deceiving, and she's headed for a breakdown, what with a darling daughter she can't care for (Natalie Wood), no money and no career prospects, and clawing relatives who can't understand where their meal ticket's gone. But, and here the credibility really snaps, she does have an ace in the hole: Sterling Hayden, who made one movie with her and gave up acting to run a shipyard, loves her. I kept wondering why this solid, handsome gentleman would keep picking up the pieces as this self-indulgent disaster of a woman keeps falling apart, and the movie never answered that. There are some enjoyable melodramatic moments and some odd real-Hollywood touches, such as Bette name-dropping her actual director of photography on many films, Ernest Laszlo, and Margaret professing a huge dislike for the rising starlet Barbara Lawrence, who actually was a rising (though not very far) starlet, and who is made out to be a shallow temporary celebrity. It's ultimately rabidly anti-feminist-'50s, with Margaret electing (after kidnapping her daughter, which the movie has no problem with) to run off with Sterling Hayden and be a darling little wifey, and while the implication is they all live happily ever after, I give it a week.

In some ways, this story seems like a SUNSET BOULEVARD knockoff. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but THE STAR does come two years later and the similarities do seem obvious. In both pictures, we have a fading actress whose public may no longer want her and whose colleagues no longer seem willing to hire her. This is because they do not look at her as being vital or as young as she still regards herself. There are other borrowed elements, too.One of those borrowed elements is the presence of a hunky and somewhat younger man that she now finds herself living with. In SUNSET BOULEVARD the hunk was William Holden; and in THE STAR it is Sterling Hayden. Another element these movies share is the comeback attempt that the actress obsesses over, and the hunk supports her emotionally through this process. Of course, she must fail and realize that screen test or not, she's finished in the picture- making business.While Norma Desmond (played by Gloria Swanson) has a tragic climax, Margaret (played by Bette Davis) gets a much happier, and perhaps sappier, ending. And though Norma's time on top seems to have occurred much earlier-- back to the silent days in Hollywood-- Margaret's story is more contemporary. Both characters, however, are rooted in the present day while desperately trying to cling to the past. I won't say which one is more outrageous, or which one chews more scenery. I will leave that up to you to decide.

In 1950, in one of her greatest films, "All About Eve," Bette Davis, in the role of Margo Channing, played a Broadway stage actress "of a certain age" who has become fearful about her future career and personal attractiveness. Two years later, Ms. Davis essayed a similar kind of role--an aging Hollywood actress who can no longer get parts and who is on the edge of bankruptcy--in Stuart Heisler's "The Star." When we first encounter Margaret Elliot, she is standing outside an auction house that is selling off all her worldly effects, the words "Going, going, gone" also serving as a cruel commentary on her vanishing career. A former Oscar winner, Margaret is now divorced, broke and with little in the way of prospects. Her young daughter Gretchen (played by 14-year-old Natalie Wood, here on the cusp of womanhood) still reveres her, but to the rest of Tinseltown, she is "box office poison." After serving a night in the can for a DUI, Margaret is bailed out by her one-time fellow actor Jim Johannsen (played by the great Sterling Hayden). The possibility is held out for a normal life with this gentle and understanding man, but can Margaret resist the urge to try for a comeback, in the form of an "older sister" screen test?Often seen as a film that closely parallels Davis' own career, "The Star" is only analogous to a certain point. Like that of Margaret Elliot, Davis' career of course had its ups and downs, its Oscar win(s) and its fights with the studio system. But unlike Margaret, Davis would go on to appear in many more great pictures in her later years (such as "The Virgin Queen," "The Catered Affair," "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?," "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte," "The Nanny," "The Whales of August" and on and on). Still, Davis must have identified closely with her character here, and it shows in some truly great work. In a film with numerous compelling scenes, two with Davis especially stand out: her drunk-driving episode while clutching her Oscar in one hand and a bottle in the other, simultaneously giving the imaginary listener a tour of Hollywood ("On your left is the home of Mr. and Mrs. Brinkman...better known to you tourists as Jeanne Crain...."), and the sequence in which she reacts, in horror, to the results of her most recent screen test. Bette, indeed, at her finest, and certainly worthy of her real-life Oscar nomination for her work here. Hayden, of course, is at his sterling best; how nice to see him playing a tender, kindly role, for a change, coming back into Margaret's life as some kind of impossibly understanding guardian angel. In another strange parallel, Hayden, an ex-sailor who became an actor to raise money for a boat, here plays an ex-actor who gives up his career to become a boat mechanic! And how strange to see Natalie, with her well-known fear of ships and the water, here blithely bouncing all over the deck of Johannsen's schooner!"The Star" is a compact film, coming in at 90 minutes, and Heisler serves it well. Five years earlier, he had directed Susan Hayward in her breakout film, "Smash-up: The Story of a Woman," which also featured a frustrated female entertainer going on a drunken bender. "The Star" is at least the equal of that great film, and indeed features what turns out to be an essential Bette Davis performance. No, it is not as fine a picture as "All About Eve" (few films are), but is still eminently likable, memorable and praiseworthy. All this, and a Hollywood happy ending, too!

Bette Davis is "The Star" in this Hollywood story done in 1952.It begins with the debt-ridden actress, Margaret Elliot, walking by an auction house that is selling her possessions on behalf of her creditors. Her agent walks out with something he bought, and Margaret tells him that she wants a part in the film version of a book that she once optioned. The agent attempts to discourage her. When she goes home, her sister and brother-in-law are there for their monthly check; she flips out on them and throws them out. Margaret lost all of her money - she gave it away to people who soaked her dry, she poured money into flop films to revitalize her career - realizing all of this, she grabs her Oscar, gets drunk, and gets arrested. She's bailed out by an actor she once starred with (Sterling Hayden) who decided Hollywood wasn't for him, and has gone into shipbuilding and repair. But he's always loved Margaret and been grateful to her for his break. He gives her his spare room and attempts to give her a dose of reality.Margaret, however, still wants back where she was - on top - and to erase the bad headlines for drunk driving, she demands that her agent give her an appointment with the producer of the film she wants to star in. The producer decides she could do the role of the older sister, but she has to do a screen test."The Star" is a realistic look at the ego of someone who has been isolated from reality and surviving on her identity as a film star. Unlike her male counterparts, she has to face the passage of time, and she can't. This still happens today, though probably at a later age than it did in Davis' era. And although someone commented that this character is probably like Davis herself, yes and no. Davis was very smart in that she went into character roles - where every leading lady ends up eventually - comparatively early in her career. The actresses who never accepted that fate, such as Merle Oberon, faded from view. Nowadays, there are people writing lead roles for older women. Meryl Streep or Diane Keaton get them.How Margaret is like Davis is that her ego makes her think that she knows it all and that she can get what she wants as she once did. She doesn't - and she can't.I really liked this film, except for the eternal '40s, '50s and beyond idea that one can have love or career, but never both. One either gives up the idea of a career and becomes a woman or chooses a career and loses out on love, meaning that she is a big loser. Certainly there's a happy medium - to figure you had a good "sleigh ride," as it's put in the film, and move on - to, for instance, character roles - and have love too. But for career gals, somehow there was always a choice.Bette Davis does a terrific job as Margaret. I was never a fan of Sterling Hayden's, but having seen more of his work, I have grown to like him. Also, he was a fascinating person as well. He gives a solid performance here. Natalie Wood is very sweet as Margaret's daughter. All in all, recommended.