WHAT PRICE HOLLYWOOD?

Choose one film to represent the essence of golden-age Hollywood, and George Cukor’s A Star Is Born could well be a contender. There’s the glamour of starpacked, floodlit premieres. There’s the sheer punch of Judy Garland’s own pedal-to-the-floor performance, as the band singer who’s taken up by boozeaddled matinee idol James Mason, and hits the heights while trying to save him from self destruction. Add to that dazzling production numbers, the timeless craft of the Great American Songbook, and brilliantly written melodrama too, where egotism and frailty collide in the high-stakes arena of screen stardom. However much there is to admire in Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga’s tilt at similar material, this is on an altogether different plateau of accomplishment. It gains even more power, however, when you know what was going on with Garland behind the scenes.

By 1953, when started coming together, Garland’s chemical dependencies had long been