Not supercali, just fragelistic

STAR !  may as well be one, twinkling enough to seize momentary attention, but too distant and remote to hold it. Celestial lights, science tells us, were once vibrant bodies, the energy they generated already extinguished by the time their essence reaches us as a flicker. That sounds nicer than calling this 1968 biopic musical what it really was, a monumental black hole that spun a meteoric career off its trajectory (Julie Andrews), tarnished the rep of a hit-making director (Robert Wise) and swallowed enough money to nearly founder a studio (20th Century Fox). *

1940. While watching a documentary about her life, storied English actress/singer/dancer Gertrude Lawrence (Andrews, 32) recalls her life in flashbacks, beginning in 1915 and coursing thru husbands, performance triumphs and financial calamities, ups and downs exacerbated by her tempestuous nature. Much attention is paid to her lifelong friendship with venerated wit Noël Coward, played by Daniel Massey–son of Raymond and godson to Coward, who was 68 at the time–and appearing in another of the year’s bombs, Boom!

Bucket list oddly does not include ‘Have Noel Coward On Top Of Me’

While making The Sound Of Music, Andrews and Wise enjoyed working together so much that they committed to making a picture about Lawrence (1898-1952), dismissing the notion that the subject—a deceased theater diva from a much different time and place—held limited commercial appeal. Good intentions can trip up the best of us. Andrews box office clout seemed unassailable—Mary Poppins, The Sound Of Music, Hawaii, Thoroughly Modern Millie; Wise claimed West Side Story, The Sound Of Music and The Sand Pebbles. But when Star! swaggered—make that staggered—out at a production tab of $14,320,000 and dragging 176 minutes—reviews were dire and box office dismal. The $12,000,000 gross saw the studio losing as much as $15,091,000 when all costs were totalled. Panic set in and it was cut down by 55 minutes and retitled Those Were The Happy Times. That not only didn’t work, it did the opposite.

“Be Glad”—nothing like guilt-tripping, pleading and apologizing all at once

Part of the problem was competition, 1968 delivered Funny Girl (a similar diva epic–count me MIA) and Oliver!  (a winner!–we like musicals–if they’re good) plus Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (will I live long enough? No.) and Finian’s Rainbow (not on my watch, I’ll stick to Darby O’Gill And The Little People). But while estimable Andrews gives it all she’s got, the noisy hoopla around her sinks like the movie equivalent of the Lusitania (at least that would be spectacular and exciting). After a half hour you begin to feel like you’re living thru the period, and with self-absorbed people hard to care an iota about. The (endless) songs and dances are elaborate but artificial, none lingering a moment past their finishes, Michael Kidd’s choreography coming off less like cheeky music hall Britain of the 1920s & 30s and more like cheesy Broadway-gone-Hollywood Palace of the 1960s.

To wit or not to twit? That is the ever-tiresome pose.

Gertrude/Julie is festooned with 125 costumes (a record) and the expensive (yet blah looking) sets are filled up with 9,847 extras. Maybe under duress from Fox, seven Academy Award nominations went up: Supporting Actor (Massey), Cinematography, Music Score, Art Direction, Costume Design, Sound and Song (“Star!”). None were deserved, none went home with a statue.

Screenplay by William Fairchild. With Richard Crenna (on deck after serving Wise well in The Sand Pebbles), Michael Craig (a really dull part, and aged considerably in the seven years since Mysterious Island), John Collin (good work as Gertrude’s boozer first husband), Robert Reed (wake me up–no, don’t bother), Alan Oppenheimer, J. Pat O’Malley, Bruce Forsythe, Beryl Reid (also in The Killing Of Sister George, the year’s anti-Star!), Anthony Eisley (remember Hawaiian Eye, anyone?), Jenny Agutter (15, as Lawrence’s ignored daughter), Bernard Fox, Anna Lee and Tony Lo Bianco—a musical with Tony Lo Bianco?

Ladies, don’t get too excited now

* Julie slams hits and then takes not one, but several. Mary Poppins (#1), The Sound Of Music (#1 and then some), Hawaii (#1), Thoroughly Modern Millie (#9)——Star! (#33), Darling Lili (#35—more entertaining than Star! but an even bigger bomb), The Tamarind Seed (#51).

Robert Wise drew a winner a few years later with The Andromeda Strain. Both Star Trek: The Motion Picture and The Hindenburg made money but were let-downs from a director who’d played aces like The Haunting, The Day The Earth Stood Still, Two Flags West, Odds Against Tomorrow, Run Silent Run Deep, West Side Story, Executive Suite, The Sound of Music and The Sand Pebbles. Based on all those, we’ll give him a pass on Star!, but now that we finally saw it the chances of sitting thru it again are…well, she’ll have to be  smart, funny and beautiful.

Try making the poster for something set in the 1920s relate to 1968; maybe that’ll bring in the weed demographic