Moustroll
Good movie but grossly overrated
Humaira Grant
It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
Caryl
It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.
JohnHowardReid
When M-G-M bought the rights from Paramount in order to film a Red Skelton re-make in 1947, they also acquired the negative. This they suppressed. The movie was never shown on American TV and thus all the people who wrote the books on Claudette Colbert, Fredric March, Gary Cooper, Maurice Chevalier and the rest were forced to rely largely on guesswork, leavened with what could be gleaned from contemporary reviews in Variety, Photoplay, Time and The New York and Los Angeles Times. The only critic who got nearly everything right was Homer Dickens who had the good sense to hunt through the files of the British Film Institute where he came upon a spread in "Picture Show" featuring Stuart Erwin with his hero, Gary Cooper. All the others relied simply upon their own powers of deduction and the way "guest stars" were treated in movies they were familiar with. They reasoned that Paramount would treat their guest stars with a certain amount of indulgence and fanfare. This is far from the case. The treatment is, to say the least, decidedly casual. This is one of the film's charms. True, Chevalier is given an "entrance", but that's all it amounts to. Cooper is handed a line of dialogue about dropping into wardrobe. Bankhead waves him a two-word farewell. Jack Oakie and Charlie Ruggles enter the preview theater together, conversing briefly. A glum and silent Fredric March can be glimpsed in a corner of the same lobby, signing autographs. From memory, I don't think that Merton is "introduced" to any of the guest stars at all. Nor does he have any conversations with them. In fact, by and large, the "guests" are dropped into the action so casually, most modern viewers will not be made aware of Brook, Colbert, Holmes, March or Sidney at all. Thus do errors repeat themselves and the uninspired guesswork of self-styled "cinema historians" becomes elevated to "facts". The real "guest star" of "Make Me a Star" is none other than the movie's actual director, William Beaudine, who contrives some wonderfully riotous run-ins between his assistant director character, stumble-bum Erwin and Oscar Apfel. Apfel is an absolute howl as a tactful but not-so- patient director (obviously modeled on — you guessed it — Beaudine himself). Confused? Make a point of seeing this movie TWICE and it will all work out!The Hollywood scenes are undoubtedly the most entertaining in the movie. They are helped out not only by Bill Beaudine's unusually stylish direction with its masterly use of the Paramount lot itself (masquerading in the film as Majestic Pictures) but by the presence of that vital, alluring, vivacious little blonde bundle of warmth and cynicism, Joan Blondell. Perfectly cast here, Miss Blondell can snap out put-down lines with all the rapid-fire command of a Glenda Farrell, whilst still displaying the warmth and sympathy, the caressing kindliness of an Irene Dunne.Erwin does okay as Merton, though one often has the feeling that his performance is more mechanical than heartfelt. Aside from Blondell, it's the support players that make the movie. Charles Sellon, repeating his role from the silent version, as the mean and mangy storekeeper, Ruth Donnelly as the wise-cracking "countess", Sam Hardy as the guiding hand of Loadstone, Oscar Apfel as the no- frills director. And of course, Ben Turpin, — though his part is brief and amounts almost to slightly uncomfortable self-parody. But maybe that's what the clever script is getting at. Maybe that's the whole point of "Make Me a Star". Where's the glamour the script seems to be asking? Hollywood is a factory town. This is the aspect the script makes time and time again. The gloom of the cheerless casting office is not exactly cast aside by the time we finally enter through that door which has closed over numerous exits and at last reach our goal — the lot itself. Where's the glamour? And what of "Flips"? What role actually is she playing? She seems at first to be Donnelly's boss and then her assistant. Then an actress (extra? star?), then a girl with an "in" to various executives — to the assistant director whom she pressures into giving Merton his first break; to the Loadstone chief whom she talks into experimenting with parody. She obviously has the freedom of the lot, yet there's an implication this freedom was purchased for the usual price. Yes, "Make Me a Star" is definitely a movie that will repay more than one visit.
John Seal
The siren song of Hollywood gets skewered in this rarely seen Paramount comedy from director William Beaudine. The forgotten Stuart Erwin stars as Merton Gill, a small town grocery clerk who dreams of becoming a cowboy star on a par with his screen idol, Buck Benson. Discouraged and ridiculed by everyone in town except erstwhile screenwriter Tessie (Helen Eddy), Merton ups sticks for Tinsel Town and sets his sights on Majestic Studios, where Benson rides the celluloid range. Rejected by the casting office but with his confidence unshaken, he finally lands a role as a comic straight man thanks to the machinations of actress Flips Montague (gorgeous Joan Blondell). Trouble is, Merton thinks he's been cast in a serious role, but when the film's premiere reveals otherwise, tears and recriminations are the order of the day. Make Me A Star also features ZaSu Pitts, silent comic Ben Turpin, and a host of bigger Paramount stars in "on set" cameos, including Gary Cooper, Maurice Chevalier, Claudette Colbert, and Fredric March. It's tremendous fun.
bkoganbing
For a film that was based on a George S. Kaufman collaboration with Marc Connelly, Make Me A Star strangely lacks the acid wit that Kaufman was known for. Instead what we have is a whimsical tale of a dreamy young man who wants to be a film star more than anything else in the world.Stu Erwin in probably his best known role plays Merton Gill the young man who was taken from an orphanage and raised by a grocer's family to be a grocery clerk and maybe later a part owner of the store. But Erwin loves the movies, he's even taken a correspondence acting course. That by the way is something I can't compute. Can you Lee Strasberg making records for a correspondence school on the Method?Erwin leaves his Hooterville like hometown to pursue his dream and won't be discouraged. His childlike innocence even wins over bit movie player Joan Blondell on loan from Warner Brothers to Paramount. Erwin in his performance touches on Stan Laurel in portraying innocence in a tough world.Besides Erwin and Blondell, Make Me A Star is best known for a whole flock of Paramount stars doing walk-ons as themselves in and around the studio and at the premiere of Erwin's movie. As I said, Erwin is almost Laurel like in his innocence and a sharp director decides to take advantage of that. Of course the gag is he doesn't tell Erwin. Gary Cooper and Tallulah Bankhead are seen in costume from The Devil And The Deep which was also shooting at the same time. Such others as Fredric March, Sylvia Sidney, Charlie Ruggles, Jack Oakie, etc. show up at the premiere. Make Me A Star, originally Merton Of The Movies ran for 392 performances on Broadway during the 1922-23 season and starred Glenn Hunter who also did a silent screen version of it. Later on MGM secured the rights and Red Skelton did a version of this in the Forties.Although the big studio system era is gone, people still dream of getting into the motion picture business. For that reason I doubt we've seen the last version of Merton Of The Movies. Can you see someone like Jim Carrey doing it for today's audience? This one will certainly do until that ever happens.
mkilmer
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.
