Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16627 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-07-04
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 166 minutes

Synopsis
A musical biography of British music hall and Broadway star Gertrude Lawrence, STAR is a convincing and entertaining film, featuring an impressive score. The immensely talented Julie Andrews plays Lawrence, a beautiful, headstrong, and fiercely independent woman who will do anything for her career (including leaving her daughter and husband). Her early adventures in the music hall chorus and her later involvement in British high society are chronicled in this lush film that, though it received several Academy Award nominations, was not appreciated by the public until some 30 years after its original showing, when it was re-released. One of the most interesting, heart warming, and perhaps most famous aspects of Lawrence's story was her lifelong friendship with playwright Noel Coward (Daniel Massey, the real-life grandson of Coward), which the film accurately portrays. STAR also shows the lowlights of Lawrence's life, including her strained relationship with her daughter Pamela (Jenny Agutter), her involvement with such men as American actor Charles Fraser (Robert Reed) and English nobleman Sir Anthony Spencer (Michael Craig), and the financial difficulties she amassed from her extravagant lifestyle.

Customer Reviews

A True Star!
Despite all the universal criticism of STAR! most of it was unjustified. It is undoubtedly one of Julie's finest roles and the supporting cast magnificent. Beautifully produced, magnificent score and Julie singing at her very best and looking great. The problem was that audiences of the day were not interested in seeing the life story of Gertrude Lawrence particularly with Julie in the lead role. Gertie had a very limited vocal range which, of course, Julie does not. They attempted to issue a shortened version called "Those were the days" but that flopped too. STAR! has now become something different and is a much admired classic.It is long and unfortunately they decided not to complete the story with Gertie's death during the original Broadway production of "The King and I". Maybe they were expecting to make a sequel. Do not miss this!

A Must
"Star!" is a must for any Julie Andrews rabid fan. Her last number - "Jenny" - is extraordinary. There are problems in the screenplay (the conflcits go thin during the picture), but Robert Wise staging is stylish and the whole production is vry beautiful. It is probably one of Julie's best performances, playing a knifer, a climber who wants desperately to succeed in the theater. She never looked so glamorous and so gorgeous. Don't mis it!

Good, but...
This is a strange film in many ways. It's basically a vehicle for Julie Andrews, and she sings about 15 songs in it.

The film is a biopic of Gertrude Lawrence, the musical star (and hence the excuse for Julie singing lots of songs), so it's not really a "musical" as we'd think of it - all the songs are sung in the context of being on a stage etc.

The good bits - Julie sings wonderfully, as usual, particularly on "Dear Little Boy", and "Someone to watch over me", and is downright spectacular on "My Ship". There are some great set pieces throughout the film and as the soundtrack is no longer available on CD (and was never digitally remastered anyway), this is the only place to hear the music, written by some of the best writers of the 20th century.

The bad bits - the story is pretty boring and serves only to link together the songs (about 18 in total). Some of the acting is fairly awful (the badminton scene springs to mind) and it's all a bit superficial.

So in conclusion, the story would get 1 and the songs 5 so I've given it a 3. Watch it once, then fast forward to the songs in future (thankfully the DVD chapters line up with the songs, so this is easy to do).

Extras - I've got the USA version which came out last year, so I don't know if the Region 2 version will have more, but there are some nice documentaries and commentary.