A Star is Bored

TCM's Essential for this week is the Judy Garland version of A Star is Born, at 8:00 PM. I've mentioned before that I'm not a big fan of Judy Garland's musicals, and this one is no exception. Not only that, but this is the reconstructed version of the movie. When originally released in 1954, theater owners thought it ran too long, and so the studio cut a good half hour of the movie out. (It's still too long, but that's another story.) In recent years, A Star is Born has gotten the same "restoration" treatment that Greed did: finding production stills, and sticking them into the movie where appropriate to show the plot points that got cut out. At least here, that only accounts for a half hour or so, and not close to two hours as in Greed.

Still, I'm sure some of you are Judy Garland fans. You'll probably love this. Actually, you'll probably love it again, since the Judy Garland fans would have seen it before.