edwagreen I don't care what the critics say. This was still another excellent Julie Andrews vehicle and she is magnificent as the late Gertrude Lawrence. The latter, a star in her own right, tempestuous, and in a way, afraid of life and what it had to offer her. Career oriented she had a daughter who seemed to want to keep her distance from her.Daniel Massey was wonderful as Noel Coward. He seemed to become Lawrence's guidance counselor; she knew who to run to each time there was a crisis in her life.The film traces Lawrence's humble beginnings to her success in British revue and ultimately on Broadway.To keep the film upbeat, nothing is mentioned regarding her death in 1952 while performing The King and I on Broadway.

Goingbegging Even as The Sound of Music was winning its Academy Award, someone asked Julie Andrews what she would most wish for next. She said she'd like a re-make of the previous year's winner, My Fair Lady, but with herself in Audrey Hepburn's role as flower-girl turned aristocrat, which of course, Andrews had made famous on Broadway in the Fifties. Well, we could say she got her wish.This film biography of Gertrude Lawrence leans far too much weight on the social-climbing theme, which had become simply stale and irritating in the wake of the huge Sixties shake-up. Equally stale is the insertion of faked black-&-white newsreel clips, which are supposed to carry the story in-between the songs. This might have worked, if anyone had heard of the late Gertrude Lawrence, which millions hadn't. And a script like weak lemonade just added to the sense of anti-climax, which brought the unthinkable - a Julie Andrews flop.The film was (and is) notable only for the musical numbers, though the choice of songs is patchy. The words of Noël Coward's first hit 'Parisian Pierrot' probably didn't mean much even in 1923, though the melody showed more of the young man's promise. 'My Ship' hadn't weathered well, a contrived job by Ira Gershwin, impossible to sing with conviction, though he does better with the athletic 'Poor Jenny'. Best by far is 'Limehouse Blues', a brilliant staging of the Chinese drug-den sequence, lean and spare, far superior to the other extravagant scenes with which 20th-Century Fox were trying to buy their way to a hit.Songs apart, then, what are we left with?Julie Andrews acting as a full-blooded woman for the first time (truly startling as the drug-whore). Daniel Massey as Coward, his real-life godfather and patron, for which he was nominated for an award, though he sometimes seems unsure whether he is acting or just impersonating. Some wooden performances by the star's various escorts, except for the much-eclipsed first husband, played convincingly by the Yorkshireman John Collin. An interesting glimpse of Jenny Agutter as the school-age daughter, and a quaint cameo of Bruce Forsyth. But otherwise just a lot of more-or-less agreeable escapism, which failed to win audiences, because it was a few years too late and simply lacking in edge.

rpvanderlinden American movies got big in the 1960's in every genre. Those that crashed and burned did so spectacularly. The story in "Star!" is framed by a black-and-white newsreel documentary of Gertrude Lawrence's life. That's Julie Andrews in the footage. Lawrence (Andrews) is present at the screening and declares, ingenuously, up front, that the film has nothing whatsoever to do with reality. That may appease some viewers. I don't regard ANY bio-pic to be embedded in reality, anyway, so I usually just sit back and enjoy the show. I happened to have just seen "The Jolson Story", and the two films are remarkably similar - in fact, Gertrude Lawrence and Al Jolson could easily have met. Both films are about huge musical stars who place their careers ahead of their personal happiness (an old story), and both feature larger-than-life, charismatic performers in the title roles (Larry Parks and Julie Andrews). It's Al Jolson singing for Parks. Both even contain sequences where the stars visit New York jazz venues, incorporating the new music into their repertoires (for today's viewer it's quite a double-take to see a performer who uses black-face onstage jazzing it up with real African Americans offstage). "Star!" doesn't show the African Americans performing inside the Cotton Club, which I think is odd and displays a lack of savvy by the film-makers. The scene plays as merely incidental, anyway. "Star!" is all about Lawrence/Andrews and three hours of ME! ME! ME! And there is virtually no attempt to define Noel Coward as anything much more than Gertrude Lawrence's ever-present, long-suffering confidante and drink-dispenser).I checked out the poster for the film's re-release under the title "Those Were the Happy Times" and featuring a singing Julie Andrews with arms outstretched in joy, which tells me that the original "Star!" must have bombed at the box office. As it happens, in spite of its flaws, I think that the movie is often quite good. These big 70mm roadshow musicals needed, I think, big, over-the-top musical personalities like Andrews, Streisand, Midler, Minnelli to fill all that space (I keep thinking of the execrable "Paint Your Wagon" in which the one guy in the movie who could sing - Harve Presnell - was relegated to a supporting role and one song). I wonder if audiences were prepared for Julie Andrews in anything but the Mary Poppins/Maria Von Trapp mold. In "Star!" she parties her way though war, Depression, and men and ends up having to pay the piper, and through it all Andrews is totally believable and frequently moving. The reasons that the movie is as good as it is are its director, Robert Wise, and choreographer, Michael Kidd. It's not surprising to me that the best movie musicals of this era were directed by men who had already proved themselves as great film-makers: Robert Wise ("West Side Story"/"The Sound of Music"), William Wyler ("Funny Girl"), Sir Carol Reed ("Oliver!"), Fred Zinnemann ("Oklahoma!"), Norman Jewison ("Fiddler on the Roof"/"Jesus Christ Superstar"). And I should not forget Bob Fosse's "Cabaret". Finally, the musical numbers in "Star!" are absolutely wonderful - lavish and eye-popping - placing the viewer in front row seats and using the wide screen as a proscenium arch. This is why I watch musicals - for the musical sequences (I long to see, one more time, the sultry Juliet Prowse slinking her way across a pink Garden of Eden in "Can-Can"). And since "Star!" did not originate on the stage I don't have to gripe about half the songs being dropped.

kosmasp I have to point out one thing right at the start. Reading the reviews here was more fascinating and entertaining than watching the movie itself. I can only suggest you do the same, click on the more button under the comments section and then list the "profilic" reviewers and you'll get great anecdotes about the movie and the character Julie Andrews portrays in here.Julie Andrews who in contrast to some of her other roles, plays a more serious role. Some people didn't like that, they had/have other expectations. And there lies the/one problem of this movie: It was marketed as another "Sound of Music", which it clearly isn't. Building these false expectation, the movie could only fail. Even with a very convincing performance by the lead actress. But even the biopic label doesn't fit as well, because in order to make the movie dramatic, many (real-life) things have been changed/altered. The story behind the making of the movie, the troubles the studio had, would make for a very entertaining movie ... something "Star!" can't claim to be.