A Star is Born (1937)

  This is the original A Star is Born, the one that has now had three remakes, each launching (or re-launching) their female lead to new heights.

Esther Blodgett (Janet Gaynor) dreamed of becoming a star in Hollywood but ends up a waitress at a cocktail party.  The star of the party, Norman Maine (Fredric March), notices her and gets her to meet his producer (Adolphe Menjou).  She is reborn as Vicki Lester and becomes his new leading lady to rave reviews and public acclaim.  Unfortunately, the public isn't as willing to forgive Maine for his drunken downward spiral and he soon finds himself lost in his wife's shadow.  Despite his best attempts to remain on the wagon, Maine slides into one relapse after another until Vicki decides to quit acting and just monitor him full-time.  Maine can't stand the thought of her destroying the career she loves so he leaves her in the most final way he can.

"How do you send a thank-you note to the Pacific Ocean?" has got to be one of the coldest lines ever spoken in a movie and that just goes to show you how hardcore writers were back in '37.  This had a team of screenwriters, including famed wit Dorothy Parker, and the script absolutely crackles.  Gaynor is pitch perfect as the wide-eyed Vicki née Esther, and March is surprisingly sympathetic.  I actually liked this version better than the 2019 remake because of his performance.

There are some minor differences between versions but the basic mechanics are the same.  Powerful but alcoholic dude meets ingenue, ingenue eclipses dude, dude gets depressed, ingenue feels guilty, dude kills himself.  It works in 1937 because of the historical context.  After the 1920s, the suffragette movement, and the Depression, women were more willing to go after jobs that had previously been for men.  This film subverts the notion that the woman is supposed to stay at home while the man has a career and shows the psychological effects of a society unprepared to accept that.  Norman is happy for his wife's success but still would rather it be him instead, despite as a judge points out, that he has had every advantage and wasted them all.  He is unwilling to let go of his pride and that's what leads to his death, not some notion that he is nobly sacrificing himself.

This film is in the public domain so it's available on pretty much every streaming service.  It's from the 1930s but it is not in black-and-white, it is in glorious color, and it's the only version of this film that isn't a musical, so you have zero excuse not to watch it.