Make Me a Star

I must first point out that I have never seen the silent version or the Red Skelton remake (both titled "Merton of the movies"), so I really cannot compare this film to the previous or later versions.

The film begins in a small town. Local boy, Merton (Stu Erwin) has ambitions to become a cowboy star in movies and has just completed his correspondence course in acting. However, it's obvious to the viewer that Merton, though likable, is a terrible actor and a bit of a boob. So, when he heads off for Hollywood it's not surprising he is in way over his head. However, a lady at the studio (Joan Blondell) feels sorry for him after weeks of coming in to the casting office and helps him get a job. But, he's terrible at acting and they haven't the heart to tell this nice guy. In fact, he's so bad they decide to cast him in a comedy--but not tell him it's NOT a serious western. In the end, he discovers the ruse and feels heartbroken...and then the movie unexpectedly ends.

This film has kernels of a good film but doesn't quite make it. Sure, Erwin in likable (as usual) but he's too serious and pathetic in the film to make this a comedy--and at times, I felt uncomfortable watching him. He was, instead of funny, quite pathetic. I assume Skelton played it more for laughs--and that's probably a better way to have played it. In addition, the film has no real ending...it just stops and seems quite incomplete. An interesting but flawed concept.

By the way, Harold Lloyd made a similar film but it was much, much, much better. "Movie Crazy" is a terrific film about a boob who arrives in Hollywood and has no idea that the folks are laughing at his dramatic performances--and he becomes an inexplicable star.

This one is slow to get going, as a small town guy who wants to be a movie star (Stuart Erwin) doesn't have any charisma, and his attempts at a couple of pratfalls are weak. Early on it seemed like this would be a pale reflection of a film that came out a few months later in 1932, 'Movie Crazy', starring Harold Lloyd. However, where that film goes for madcap laughs, this one goes for pathos, and it's in Erwin's bumbling but sincere character that we find an awkward, earnest charm. Amidst a few touching scenes in this guy's story, it's also got some behind the scenes looks at Hollywood sets, several cameo appearances from stars of the day, and a small critique of the industry.

Three well-executed and touching scenes stand out:

• After an actress (Joan Blondell) takes pity on him and gets him a part as an extra, we see him get a single line to deliver, which he nervously flubs a few times before being asked to leave by the director. He does the line one more time and nails it, but while triumphantly looking around, sees the stage has emptied for lunch.

• In desperation he begins sleeping on the lot in the hope he'll get another break, and disheveled and broke, he digs through the trash to try to find food. Blondell finds him this way, and treats him with great kindness and dignity, getting him breakfast. Her looks of empathy reminded me of her 'My Forgotten Man' performance in 'Gold Diggers of 1933.' Being down and out and suffering hunger was a theme in Depression era films, and filmgoers were likely moved by Erwin's plight at a very basic level. He plays this scene very well too, with the perfect touch of humility, and little things like his hands shaking while he lifts his coffee cup.

• Fast forwarding a bit, after getting the starring role in a movie he believes is a classic Western, he attends the preview, only to find he's been duped and the movie is a farce. He's been set up to look like a fool not only by the director, but by Blondell. The scene in the theater where the film cuts to shots of audience members guffawing and then back to him squirming in discomfort is brilliant - and it should remind modern audiences of James Franco in 'The Disaster Artist', which perhaps owes a debt to it. We see several scenes on the big screen after having seen them on the set earlier, including a 'blue screen' scene on a horse, and it's really nice work.

If you watch closely, you'll also see many stars, including Maurice Chevalier, Gary Cooper, Claudette Colbert, Tallulah Bankhead, Frederic March, and Sylvia Sidney, adding another bit of interest. The film pokes a little at the phoniness of the industry, epitomized by the cowboy star Erwin idolizes (George Templeton), who isn't such a nice guy in reality. Blondell is charming in her part but Erwin, well, he's almost too damn sincere and milquetoast to really love the film. Its ending is also a bit abrupt. Still, worth seeing, and an interesting little pre-code curio.

Stu Erwin wants to be a cowboy star. He takes a correspondence school course, and heads to Hollywood, where he can't make it into the front door. He winds up camping in the extras room, until born-in-a-trunk Joan Blondell gets him a background bit..... and he blows that. After he nearly starves to death, she talks comedy director Sam Hardy into making a send-up of cowboy movies starring Erwin.

William Beaudine directed this version of Merton of the Movies as a painful drama, and on those terms it works pretty well. Miss Blondell is excellent, of course, and if I strongly dislike Erwin's countrified dumb bell, his star persona in this period, at least it fits the character.

With a fie cast, including Zasu Pitts, Ben Turpin (always referred to as 'the Cross-Eyed Man), and a wealth of Paramount stars in cameos a themselves, it's an enjoyable picture on those terms.

Despite what you might have read, this is not a comedy. It's upbeat and amusing but the theme is about the cruelty of people finding it funny to laugh at people with 'learning difficulties' and how those people should appreciate how hurtful that can be.

I've never heard of Stuart Erwin before and maybe that anonymity helps us see his character, Merton, exactly as we're meant to: an unknown trying to make it in the snake-pit of Hollywood. Merton is a simple, child-like young man who thinks he can just walk up to the door of a film studio and become a star. His naive innocence makes us warm to him and feel sorry for him as people laugh at his stupidity and take advantage of him. His character is intentionally flat and one-dimensional but somehow Erwin manages to make his Merton believable and quite endearing.

Joan Blondell, playing a reasonably successful actress, who like us the viewer, first laughs at him, then feels sorry for him and eventually learns that she actually likes him. Her performance is outstanding, full of depth and pathos as she allows her character's true personality to emerge and develop. Although we're more used to seeing her playing funnier characters she's brilliant in this more dramatic role. Even though she's not playing for laughs she is just as sassy, witty and of course incredibly sexy.

Without giving anything away, the last scene is one of the most moving and touching few minutes on screen I've ever seen. This outpouring of emotion isn't just thanks to the amazing Joan, the surprisingly impressive Stuart Erwin but also from veteran Hollywood director William Beaudine. He is perhaps more well known for coming over here to make four classic Will Hay comedies - he could clearly turn his hand to anything and this motion picture shows just how much talent he had.

This film does take a while to really get going but overall it's a lovely bitter-sweet, light heated drama. The clever thing about it is that you don't realise until it's finished is that it's just so "nice."

This movie is indescribably touching. Stuart Erwin is poignant as the naif who comes to Hollwywood to be a star; but he never overdoes it. Joan Blondell, always a reat, is at her absolute best here, as a girl who's been around but is touched by his innocent.

This movie is indescribably touching. Stuart Erwin is poignant as the naif who comes to Hollywood to be a star; but he never overdoes it. Joan Blondell, always a treat, is at her absolute best here, as a girl who's been around but is touched by his innocent.

The character roles are well cast. The writing carries impeccable names as its creators.

When it becomes comic, even though we are sad for Erwin's character because he is being goofed on, the scenes are absolutely hilarious. The shot of him riding a horse on a tightrope alone is worth watching over and over.

Preston Sturges mixed comedy and seriousness in the later, far better known (and wonderful) "Sullivan's Travels." That is a great movie. Perhaps, as this was made early in the days of talking pictures, it isn't great -- though so was "Scarface," and that I would call great.

Regardless, it is a beautiful movie, to be cherished and shared and watched over and over.