Popular reviews

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  Review by Sam ★★½ 1

  Star! was always going to be a commercial flop. The late '60s saw the death of the Hollywood roadshow musical with this being one of the final financial disasters along with films such as Doctor Dolittle (1967), Camelot (1967), Hello, Dolly! (1969), and Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969). The most notable musical success from this time period is probably Funny Girl (1968), but unlike that, Star! was not based on a massively successful stage production that had just finished its Broadway run. Gertrude Lawrence was a legendary theater icon but the story itself is not terribly interesting and is stretched out over three hours. Despite the recent hot streak of Andrews and Wise’s big name behind the camera, the mediocre reviews,…

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  Review by TajLV ★★★½

  Part of my 5 Directors x 5 Unseen Films (6) challenge.

  This musical biopic based upon life of actress Gertrude Lawrence (Julie Andrews) pulled in seven Oscar nominations, including Best Cinematography, Art Direction, Costume Design, Sound and Music Score as well as Best Original Song, "Star," The other Academy Award nomination was for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, going to Daniel Massey for his performance as the multi-faceted entertainer and playwright Noël Coward. In fact, this portrayal won Massey the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor.

  Director Robert Wise chose to frame this 176-minute road show production as a story within a story, with Lawrence sitting in a projection room at age 34 and watching the final edit of…

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  Review by Mark Kaiserman ★★

  14 years after Star!, Julie Andrews again starred as a cabaret performer looking for love with a gay best friend. But Victor/Victoria had exquisite musical numbers, sympathetic characters, and a lot of humor, and it was ONLY TWO HOURS LONG.
  This is a slog. Julie Andrews is a marvel, but this needed a lot of editing.

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  Review by Ken ★★★

  +1/2 a star for the documentary aspect. It felt a bit disjointed, but I appreciate the ambition behind something different in these kinda films that are typically all the same.

  But -1/2 star for how insufferably long this was

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  Review by akazyandra ★★★

  she’s the star!

  this is, to be honest, a fairly mediocre biopic. the musical numbers are sooo pompous, everything looks stunning, but with one after one I got the feeling that their main purpose was to distract us from how uneven the script is here.
  a tremendous amount of work has been done, but there's a sense of incompleteness.

  but may I say “The Saga of Jenny” is one of the best musical numbers I've ever seen!!!

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  Review by Jenna Ipcar ★★½

  Arduous and bizarrely stodgy biopic that can’t seem to figure out how to marry the era depicted with modern filmmaking. I actually really like the solution of news reel, her ‘present day commentary’ and flashbacks, it’s just too bad the whole thing feels straight out of 1959 in its filmmaking. Worst is just how grating its main character is — considering how long this movie is we barely know anything about our star as a person. It’s the same old biopic nonsense, we see her perform time and time again but it takes two and a half hours for Wise to finally let us peer behind the curtain and see something happening in her interior. Exhausting.  

  Most I can say for this is that horrendously batshit musical it ends with serves to define “camp” for future generations to come.

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  Review by klaudia ★★★★

  How to do a really good film? Simple.
  1. Make it as campy as possible.
  2. cast Dame Julie Andrews in the lead
  3. let her wear 73848497384 different but beautiful costumes. 

  But to be serious, I think we can all agree that Julie Andrews will forever remain the Queen of Musicals and no one will ever be able to top her.

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  Review by 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐬.💚🌿 ★★★★

  julie andrews in musicals is everything i need in my life

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  Review by Andrew Black ★★★★★

  Might just be, on a purely technical level, the best musical ever made. Every frame of this near-three-hour film a painting. A painting composed of exaggeratedly sumptuous production values, Julie Andrews's fierce screen presence, intricate staging, tremendous direction from the ever reliable Robert Wise and a delicious occasional throwback to the 1920s and 30s newsreels. All that with a background of an amazing treatment of music - with prime Andrews singing - and sound.

  The fact that this film did not win the Academy Award for Costume Design is baffling. Out of all the seven it was nominated for - which is still somehow not enough - this movie just needed to win that one. Here is a fun numbers…

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  Review by loureviews ★★★★

  I L<3ve Musicals!

  Julie Andrews may be nothing like Gertrude Lawrence in looks or voice, but who cares?

  This is a hugely enjoyable musical romp from the teens to the forties through such numbers as 'Saga of Jenny', 'The Physician', 'Burlington Bertie', and 'Has Anybody Seen Our Ship?'.

  Andrews is terrific in a part which required a fair range of acting - the scenes with her daughter (a young Jenny Agutter) are poignant, the ones with her numerous lovers are amusing (some good support here from Michael Craig and Robert Reed) - and the whole thing gels together well.

  See the long version, there's much to enjoy in it. Particularly worth a nod is Daniel Massey's note-perfect portrayal of his godfather Noel Coward.

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  Review by faith ★★½ 2

  the costumes were so good but…… this was garbage…..

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  Review by Eliza ★★★★

  Fabulous Julie Andrews musical! Fun, bright, beautiful, and just a great movie. Loved it.