Konterr Brilliant and touching

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

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.

dcaprita Having done the 'starving actor thing" in LA for several years, I fell in love with this movie late one night on Turner Classics. It has some great scenes of the naive midwestern dude learning how to act and get in the business. And it doesn't necessarily have a happy ending, which I loved. Does he stay and starve, does he go back home, does he make it? The casting scenes are great and Joan Blondell does a great job as the sympathetic inside woman. Accurate, tongue in cheek portrait of the business that still stands.

David Atfield 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.