Cult Flops - Star!

20th Century Fox, 1968
Starring Julie Andrews, Daniel Massey, Richard Crenna, and Michael Craig
Directed by Robert Wise
Music by Noel Coward and others

Our last biography came out at a time when musicals were starting to rapidly fall out of favor with American audiences. Thoroughly Modern Millie managed to get by this the year before with a good cast and a goofy plot, but most Americans barely remembered British stage star Gertrude Lawrence by 1968, let alone cared to see a three-hour film about her. The film was a huge flop in the late 60's, almost on a par with Head...but did it deserve that fate? Let's join Lawrence in a theater to check out a movie about her life and find out...

The Story: We hear both the real and slightly less-real version of the story of Gertrude Lawrence (Andrews), from a newsreel being made about her life in 1940 and from Lawrence herself as she watches it. Lawrence started out in the theater as early as childhood, but by the age of 15, she'd run away to join her father and his wife in an act, touring rough music halls in England and South Africa. She gets into the chorus of famous French producer Andre Charlot's (Alan Oppenheimer) revues, but keeps trying to stand out, which doesn't make her popular with Charlot or the other chorus girls. It does attract Jack Roper (John Collin), the stage manager. He convinces Charlot to make her an understudy and eventually marries her. After she goes on for a star while pregnant and is a success, she and Roper call it quits. She's tired of his drinking; he wants her to stay at home.

She eventually takes up with wealthy Sir Anthony Spencer (Craig), but her romance gets her fired from Charlot's revue and blackballed from the stage when she's caught at a nightclub when she's supposed to be at home sick. Spencer turns her into a lady, but she wants back in with Charlot. Her good friend Noel Coward (Massey) finally convinces his boss to feature her in his new show. She's a smash, and is even bigger in the US. She's so popular, she eventually acquires not one, but three rich suitors.

Gertie, however, is spending her money like water on parties and Roaring 20's frivolity. It all comes crashing down when the onset of the Depression and her own reckless habits leave her totally bankrupt. She works like a horse, appearing in shows during the day and performing in nightclubs at night. She does manage to make her money back, but all the working destroys her already-shaky relationship with her growing daughter Pamela (Jenny Agutter). She gets especially drunk at a party after Pamela won't go on vacation with her and is escorted home by humorless producer Richard Aldrych (Crenna). He and Coward finally convince her to appear in one of her greatest triumphs, the unusual 1941 musical Lady In the Dark; he marries her shortly afterwards, and they remain together until her (unseen) death in 1954.

The Song and Dance: The late 60's were probably a bad time to be releasing any musical film, let alone a three-hour epic about a British stage star of the 1920's. It's generally better-regarded today. Andrews gives a dazzling performance as Lawrence, who spent so much of her life performing, she never quite found the real her under the personas. Massey made such a perfect Coward, he picked up a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. The period-perfect costumes and art direction and nicely done widescreen cinematography also received nods.

By the late 60's, people were ready to see warts-and-all biographies of their favorite stars. Other than changing a few names and combining a few people, this seems to be a fairly accurate reflection of Lawrence's life. It's definitely not as whitewashed as our previous two biographies, with its detailed discussions of her first troubled marriage and her bankruptcy proceedings.

Favorite Number: Andrews has a field day with recreations of some of Lawrence's most famous routines, from the music hall favorite "Berlington Bertie from Bow" to the Gershwins' "Someone to Watch Over Me" from the 1926 show Oh, Kay! "The Saga of Jenny" and "Limehouse Blues" are enjoyable, lavish chorus numbers with choreography by Michael Kid.

My two favorite routines highlight the friendship between Gertie and Noel Coward. It's rare that a musical film cribs a scene from a non-musical play, but the sequence from Private Lives and Andrews' song "Someday I'll Find You" is beautifully elegant and understated. Andrews and Massey come back on later as sailors to have fun with one of Coward's most popular comic songs, "Has Anybody Seen Our Ship?"

Trivia: This movie had even worse problems on release than Head. Once it became apparent that it wasn't going over with audiences in its original form, 20th Century Fox cut it to two hours and changed the title to Those Were the Happy Days. That went over even less well. Thankfully, the original camera negative was spared, and they were able to restore and release the full, uncut version in the early 90's.

What I Don't Like: Maybe they should have left it at two hours. While the shortened version is said to have some gaping plot holes, the movie is just too long and too big. A lot of scenes could have been eliminated, including several of the numbers, with no one the wiser. The last third of the movie drags like crazy between songs, despite some amusing sniping between Andrews and Crenna.

The Big Finale: While it's too bloated to be a masterpiece, it still didn't deserve anything resembling what it got at the box office in 1968. If you're a fan of Andrews, Lawrence, or the epic musicals of the 60's and have time on your hands, this is absolutely worth a look.

Home Media: People complain about the DVD eliminating the intermission and adding a sepia tint to the black-and-white newsreel sequences, along with some improper framing. I have the DVD, and quite frankly, it's not that much of an issue, at least not that the movie is unwatchable. The DVD is currently out of print (I found it at a library book sale), but it's not that expensive online.

DVD