Make Me a Star

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."

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.

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.

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.

Billed as a comedy about a gormless man who becomes a Hollywood star, this is actually a moving drama about the savageness of the film industry. Stuart Erwin is very fine as the young man, an innocent lost in the wilds of Hollywood. His performance is reminiscent of the performances of Charles Ray in silent films, a winning combination of warmth and naivety. The character wants to be a a serious actor, but his attempts at drama cause only laughter. After describing one such incident Blondell responds to "That must have been funny" with "Only if you find coal-mine explosions funny". Blondell, as a fellow actor, understands Erwin's pain - her performance is also excellent.

Finally Erwin is tricked into making a comedy film - which he believes is a drama. His devastation at the preview, as the crowd roar with laughter around him, will move you to tears.

Sadly the film ends too abruptly without resolving these complex issues. And the stars making "guest appearances" actually just walk through - a shame that something more imaginative wasn't done with them - and Zasu Pitts only has a tiny role (still funny though).

Great to see how early talkies were made - look at the size of the camera with all that casing to mask the noise. Make sure you see this moving "comedy" - most worthwhile. And afterwards see "Show People" (1928) to see how the talkies transformed Hollywood so quickly.