Les gaietés du cinéma

"Merton of the Movies" was originally a novel by Harry Leon Wilson, an extremely popular humour author in his day. Adapted as a stage play by Marc Connelly and George S. Kaufman, it became a Broadway smash which was filmed at least three times.

When we first see Merton Gill (played by handsome Glenn Hunter), he's a dashing swashbuckler cowboy. But this turns out to be a Walter Mitty-style fantasy. In fact, Merton is a moron: a gormless klutz who dreams of stardom as a dramatic actor but who has no talent and no brains. (I can think of several real-life movie stars who fit that description.)

Recruited by movie director Jeff (DeWitt Jennings) to do a very simple piece of business in a dramatic scene, Merton emotes hopelessly and causes a disaster. But the show-biz bug has bitten him, and now Merton goes to Hollywood in quest of stardom. Along the way, he has various misadventures ... especially with lovely brunette Sally Montague, who is nicknamed "Flips" because she used to be a juggler in vaudeville. In the Broadway version of "Merton", some of the best lines went to the wisecracking "Flips": in this film version, actress Viola Dana has to suffice with a few sarcastic tosses of her head between the sarcasms printed in the intertitles.

SPOILER: The pay-off is sadly predictable. Although Merton is a total no-chancer as a dramatic actor, his ineptitude is (supposedly) so hilarious that he blunders into a successful career as a comedian.

Rather a lot of movies have used this idea of the klutz who reaps comedy stardom by accident (Chaplin in "The Circus", Harold Lloyd in "Movie Crazy", Buster Keaton in the TV episode "The Silent Partner"), but I've always found it clichéd and implausible.

Gale Henry (an Olive Oyl lookalike) is very good in a supporting role, and there are good performances by Charles Ogle and by Charles Sellon: the latter actor is best-known as the blind man who terrorised W.C. Fields in "It's a Gift".

The silent-film version of "Merton of the Movies" is fitfully amusing, but not great. James Cruze's direction is excellent: Cruze's career is long overdue for re-appraisal. But the 1947 remake of "Merton", starring Red Skelton, is much funnier than this silent version. There's also an early talkie remake, "Make Me a Star", with Stu Erwin as Merton.

This film is missing and presumed lost, please check your attics.

"Merton of the Movies" is a spoof of the scores of actors who flooded Hollywood, acting correspondence courses in hand, hoping to make it big. Merton's problem is that he is a bad actor-- but so bad he is funny! Viola Dana plays his stunt-woman love interest.

It's a shame this movie is lost as it looks delightful. On a side note, any reviews that purport to have seen "Merton of the Movies" should be looked on with suspicion unless the reviewer is able to state the place, time and circumstances under which the film was viewed. Sadly, all too many silent films have disappeared and "Merton" is one of the more tragic cases.

Check those attics!

I don't know how the previous reviewer managed to see this film unless he saw it in the theater upon its original release in back in the roaring twenties or has a time machine in his garage. Sadly, this first filmed version of Merton of the Movies happens to be one of the most sought after lost films, as there are no known surviving prints. It's a shame, as it looks rather entertaining and it would have been interesting to see a silent version of the famous story. Nevertheless, unless the previous critic actually has a print stashed away in his attic or saw it screened decades ago, there is no way he nor anyone else could have possibly seen this.