Make Me a Star

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.

"Make me a Star" is a heartrending film, one that superbly demonstrates the sincerity, honesty, and versatility of Stuart Erwin. Although many of the early scenes are farcical and satirize slapstick comedy, specifically the kind directed by Mack Sennett, the movie turns serious when it delves into the boorish behavior of the Hollywood studio system moguls, who prey upon starstruck acting hopefuls. And Stuart Erwin, as one of these unworldly hopefuls, handles both the farce and the drama equally adroitly. The final scene between Erwin and Joan Blondell is heartbreaking. In fact, I was so impressed with the movie that I decided to devote much of one chapter to this remarkable film in my book on Stuart Erwin.

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.

Here I am, in 2007, and I'm a huge Joan Blondell fan. Yes, Zasu Pitts appears in MAKE ME A STAR – daffy and confounding – but only for a bit. I think it's Joanie's movie.

Stuart Erwin stars as Merton Gill, a.k.a. 'Whoop' Ryder, a kid from a small town who wants to make it in Hollywood as a serious actor in Westerns. He gives it a huge effort, but he's dismissed as the rube he actually is. Flips Montague (Joan) is sympathetic. She gets him a job, with a Mack Sennett-like director whose big star is that "cross-eyed man" Stuart dislikes so much. Merton thinks he's acting in a serious film, but it is edited and spliced, his voice changed to make him sound effeminate, and turned into a farce.

Merton proposes to Joan before the film's big opening, but she feels guilty and fakes sickness. He goes to the opening by himself and is humiliated.

I won't give away the ending, and the film is resolved by the closing scene, but it's nice to imagine his future if he takes the course which involves the girl.

This is a fun film.

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."