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CRITICA EN EL PERIODICO "ABC DE SEVILLA" (1-3-1958)
Supone esta grandiosa producción, una indiscutible superación de cuanto hasta ahora se abia llevado a la pantalla respecto al tena sugestivo y humano, del ocaso artístico de quienes colmados de felicidad y aptitudes, se mantienen aureolados por la fama, y mientras poseen el poder de atraer a las masas, luego pretende, cuando los triunfos llegan a menos y las multitudes se apartan de su figura, ya marchita, reverdecer viejos laureles. Esta es la valiente leyenda con que Cifesa se enfrenta en la película estrenada ayer en el Coliseo, y justo es afirmar que es el difícil empeño cinematográfico, logró un éxito total y definitivo. cuanto se desarrolla en el filme tiene el máximo de humanidad y auténtico realismo y nada ocurre que no obedezca al sentido de la expresividad, a la sucesión de imágenes que por si solas relatan y desenvuelven un tema por mortificante que perezca, y al desenlance lógico, que es cuanto exige la técnica del cine para lograr destacados triunfos. Así, en "La estrella" se expone con exactas tonalidades el crepúsculo de una genial artista que no puede doblegar su fama y su propio carácter a la realidad de un echo indubitable: la pública negación a sus esfuerzos por sostener aptitudes y vigores desaparecidos. Y el logro de los productores de esta sensacional película consiste en hallar a la mujer donde no había ya más que el resabio, hecho de soberbia, ante el temor a la humillación. Precisamente, y ello es como una continuación del elogio a la interesante narración, encarna a la protagonista, la insuperable Bette Davis, de cuyas aptitudes de actriz no hay que hacer méritos. Si acaso sólo registrar que en este ocaso artístico que tan dignamente se nos relata, ninguna otra hubiese salido tan airosa de un papel sobrado de crudeza y obsesión destructiva, y como final, compresión, humanismo y amor. Por ello, bien ganado tiene el tercer Oscar, que puede ostentar en su historia artística con indudables méritos. Y no puede dejarse de mencionar la formidable labor del magnifico actor Sterling Hayden, y juntos a ellos, intervenciones de tanta responsabilidad como las de Natalie Wood y Warren Anderson para que el éxito de esta sensacional película sean tan sugestivo como impresionante.- S.
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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!
Thanks for your comment, Paco Granados
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