That other version of A Star Is Born

I've posted on the classic 1937 film A Star Is Born before. It's a movie I really enjoy for a bunch of reasons. It's been remade, of course, notably in 1954 with Judy Garland taking the star honors and taking over the movie because, well, she's Judy Garland. (I have to admit I've never been a fan of Judy Garland's singing.) There's a third version that seems to show up even less. No; I'm not talking about the movie What Price Hollywood which came out in 1932 and which is often looked at as an original version of A Star is Born since so many of the plot elements are there.

In 1976, a third movie titled A Star Is Born was released, starring Barbra Streisand and moves the movie into the world of pop music. Here, she meets a rocker on the way down (Kris Kristofferson) while she's on her way up. Naturally, they fall in love, but the results don't turn out so well. I'm talking about the results of their relationship, not the results of the movie, although that's a problem too since with a star like Streisand you know the movie is going to be hers all the way as it was with Garland. I'm not a huge fan of Streisand, since a little bit of her goes a long way; I'm especially not a fan of her singing.

But at any rate, the 1976 A Star Is Born was nominated for an Oscar thanks to the Best Original Song category. In fact, the song won the Oscar. At least Paul Williams got a statuette. And because of that Oscar nomination, the movie can be shown in TCM's 31 Days of Oscar. It's coming up overnight at 12:15 AM.

Now if TCM could just get the rights to the 1980 version of The Jazz Singer, although I don't think that one was Oscar-nominated, not even for any of the songs.