Star! (1968)

Noel Coward: Close personal relationships are bloody difficult, my darling but they do get easier with time. Loneliness gets harder.

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Noel Coward: You can't decide what you want until you decide who you are.

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After this musical flopped at the box office, Fox decided to substantially cut and re-market the film. They did some primitive market research, and tested audience response to three titles: "Music For The Lady, Star!" and "Those Were The Happy Days". The latter got the best response, but (possibly to avoid confusion with a couple songs about happy days) the final title was "Those Were The Happy Times". Robert Wise didn't believe revamping the the film would work but he didn't interfere. He declined to be involved in the re-cutting and asked that his credit "A Robert Wise Film" be removed. William Reynolds, the film's original editor, was hired to cut down the film based on instructions from Richard D. Zanuck. The cuts were a bad idea but they were very adeptly done. They hired the same artist who did the poster for "Sound Of Music" and every attempt was made to make audiences think this 120 minute version was a similar film. The original title was tucked into a corner of all the ads, so audiences were not fooled and this desperate effort only convinced people who hadn't seen the original that it really was a bad film. By the time it debuted on American television, the original title was restored, but the picture was still cut. At almost the same time, it debuted on Ballard Berkeley is credited by several sources as having been in the movie, but does not actually appear.
Beatrice Lillie was a friend of Gertrude Lawrence but her role was written out of the screenplay after she refused to let anyone play her role but herself (she was 73 at the time).
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