A Star Is Born premiere, 1954 + East Of Eden

That fascinating premiere footage of A STAR IS BORN in Hollywood in 1954, a dvd extra on the restored film, is also on YouTube. Its a time capsule now, as Hollywood - old and new - turned out for one of the biggest premieres of the era. It seems they all wanted Judy (rather overweight here) to do well in her comeback film ..... there's Doris Day, Peggy Lee, Debbie and Eddie, Liz and Michael Wilding, Tony and Janet, Jack Carson is the MC and Joan Crawford has fun joshing with her MILDRED PIERCE co-star. There's Liberace and his mother; Raymond Burr "back from Korea" turns up with a cute marine (a Mr Frank Vitti, who it seems spent several years with Burr) - and plenty more: Mitzi, Bacall, Shelley Winters - the furs, the costumes! 

We love A STAR IS BORN here, one of the first movies I saw as a kid, its still marvellous now. What did they think they were doing by cutting it drastically? It made no sense for Norman Maine to say to a nervous Esther Blodgett before her screen test "to think of a man eating a nutburger", as the scene of her working in the burger bar had been cut!

EAST OF EDEN in 1955 was the business too, another big Warner Bros spectacular event. Marilyn and Brando were ushers at this one, handing out the programmes. Somehow, today's premieres are not quite the same ....