On-the-skids melodrama with Bette Davis as fallen movie celebrity Margaret Elliot, watching as all her belongings go up on the auction block ("one dollar!" someone calls out); her motto from this point seems to be "Going, going, gone." The picture, enjoyable and perhaps cathartic for both Davis and her fans at the time, is both campy and ferocious, with claws out; a look at how celebrity changes perceptions and, when that celebrity fades, how difficult it is for once-famous people to get their lives back on track. There are slow stretches involving Davis with potential suitor Sterling Hayden; however, her early downward spiral and subsequent struggle to find work is absorbing--in a masochistic, gaudy way. A last-act tease, wherein Margaret is approached for a humiliating role in a new movie project, deliciously appears to parallel Bette Davis in "The Star"! Her grit and determination makes the picture a satisfying wallow. **1/2 from ****
Review of The Star
