A Star is Born 2018, how about that!!!!

Probably the biggest strike against the Streisand version was its aggressive sense of being a vanity project, having the effect of throwing the enterprise out of balance. The Cukor-Garland-Mason effort seems to have set not only the standard, but a pattern: what with follow-ups by Streisand, now with Lady Gaga and an abortive one announced for Beyonce a couple or so years back, the musical angle has become the central fixture of all reworkings of the Wellman-Carson-Parker-Campbell story since '54. I wonder if this hasn't been a miscalculation. As you point out, OldAussie, it's a good story, and there's no reason it needs to be a musical one; it hasn't always been.

While I can see the value of easily discerned musical talent in terms of dramatic shorthand, which renders the notion of a performer catapulted from obscurity to prominence perhaps more credible than the one-in-a-million, Cinderella quality of the '37 version, reliance on that aspect alone runs the risk for any performer of suggesting their involvement as the raison d'être of such a project, as though the only purpose left in reviving the story is providing a showcase for a hot-at-the-moment personality. It just has "marketing" written all over it, and relegates the central romantic and tragic irony of diverging career trajectories to secondary status.

The '54 version circumvented that pitfall in multiple ways. For both songwriters and performers, popular music hadn't yet entered the era of rapidly-changing tastes and popularity the rock-n-roll age would soon usher in (and which has become more acute with each decade), to which Garland's longevity, as well as that of Gershwin and Arlen, attested. And in updating the story, Moss Hart wisely incorporated Garland's own seasoned maturity as a performer into the script, taking great pains to make the point that an entertainment town like L.A. is crawling with talent laboring unnoticed year after year, and simply never getting the big break that would bring recognition. Garland's Esther Blodgett is no naive dreamer fresh from the hinterlands who resolves to take Hollywood by storm. Although she hasn't given up on making it big, she's been around and knows the score. What Hart cleverly does is transfer the bulk of "dreamer" qualities to Norman.

ESTHER: "You see how long it's taken me to get this far. Now, all I need is just a little luck."

NORMAN: "What kind of luck?"

ESTHER: "Oh, the kind that every girl singer with a band dreams of: one night a talent scout from a big record company will come in. And he'll let me make a record."

NORMAN: "Yes, and then?"

ESTHER: "The record'll become No. 1 on the hit parade, be played on jukeboxes all over the country...and I'll be made. Huh: end of dream."

NORMAN: "There's only one thing wrong with that."

ESTHER: "I know: it won't happen."

NORMAN: "No, it might happen very easily. Only the dream isn't big enough."

And thus, the dimensions of Norman's character are broadened beyond those of his first screen incarnation: an established star whose personal interest in an ambitious youngster provides the fortuitous springboard to fame that she's after; he now becomes someone who recognizes the potential in Esther of which she herself wasn't aware, and his emotional investment in her success is therefore deepened. While the '37 and '54 screenplays follow identical dramatic curves in depicting both the growing love and opposing professional fortunes of Norman and Esther, their treatments of her personal and professional renewal following his death take differing thematic courses. Garland's Esther is inspired by her friend Danny to go on in tribute to Norman, giving the sacrifice of his life some meaning:

"His love for you and your success, that was the one thing in his life that wasn't a waste, and he knew it. And now you're doing the one thing he was terrified of: you're wiping it out! You're tossing it right back into the ocean after him! You're all that remains of him now, and if you just kick it away, it's like he never existed. Like there never was a Norman Maine at all."

The '37 screenplay instead puts emphasis at the outset on the cost of success in terms of personal sacrifice, as Esther's grandmother issues both encouragement and warning:

"Oh yes, you want to be somebody, but you want it to be easy. Could you do it even if it broke your heart? Because remember, Esther, for every dream that you make come true, you'll pay the price in heartbreak."

When Janet Gaynor's Esther resolves to quit and go home in the wake of Norman's death, Granny comes to Hollywood with a reminder of that admonition, which makes Esther's ultimate change of heart a matter of personal redemption and perseverance:

"Once, I told you that to get what you want, you have to give your heart in exchange. And you said you were willing, you remember? Well, it seems to me that you got more than you bargained for: more fame, more success, even more personal happiness. And maybe, more unhappiness. But you did make a bargain. And now, you're whining over it. You know, Esther, wherever Norman is, I can't believe that he can be very happy knowing that his death broke the spirit of the little girl he praised me so highly for raising."

I mention these points to call attention to the dramatic options the story offers, and which fell by the wayside in the '76 version's immersion into rowdy, mercurial and self indulgent rock-star culture, which tended not only to obscure the resonance of the central relationship even as it reveled in its emotional volatility, but imparted little meaning to John Norman Howard's death much beyond par-for-the-course impulsive irresponsibility. There's never any significant doubt that the career of Streisand's Esther will continue apace.

It's unfair to prejudge a project that may never go before the cameras, and no one can know at this point if the Cooper/Gaga one ever will. If it doesn't, what I'm suggesting is that any future contemplation of reviving the story focus on its essence rather than as appeal to pop culture zeitgeist, and even - {{gasp!}} - be considered as something other than a musical! Let's face it: once it's been done with the likes of Garland, any further iteration will be at a disadvantage.