This is high modernism at its best - a powerful recognition of the enormous power of cinema to both elevate and crush talent, told through the means of a simple "boy wants to go to Hollywood" story. It is so affecting because though it can be viewed as a relatively straightforward tragicomedy, it ultimately becomes a light but heartfelt meditation on the constraints that art places on the artist and the artist on the art. But that's what they were doing in 1932 - a particularly great year for Cinema - when the technology had really come together (this movie has music overlays, and film within a film), but the industry had not yet begun to self-police itself in the context of its political role in society, and to abandon the unself-conscious exploration of the latest literary forms. These themes - self-consciousness, the artist as victim to his art - themes that Joyce and Woolf were exploring in literature, can be found right here in "Make me a Star." The Pre-Production Code Enforcement movies almost always contain these nuggets, and I watch them no matter how badly rated the contemporary critics assess them. For example, this movie garners but 2 starts, yet I would put it as solid 3.5 (out of 4).
Stuart Irwin's acting is a tour-de-force: absolutely astounding at every turn, and the final scene had me in tears: Laugh if you well, his statement "I'm a clown" reminded me of the great aria "Rire Pagliacco" from Il Pagliacci - it was that kind of moment - the self-conscious realization that the actor and the role were one, but in contrast to the opera, here the clown accepts his fate rather than fighting it.
Ruth Donnelly has a cameo role and is her usual work-horse self - always great to see the old girl, and let's all work to put her into the pantheon of great stars, for she certainly was. The brilliance of her acting is that she doesn't thumb her nose at conventional morality, she doesn't know it exists. She is too busy in the day-to-day to understand the oppression of woman, but if confronted, she will make it clear that others may be oppressed, but she ain't (and you'll learn the hard way soon if you don't agree with her).
I do not know if the 1924 play includes the homosexual innuendo found in this movie, when Joan Blondell says to Sam Hardy, "You're not going soft on him, are you?" Regardless, this moment is fine, and there is no shame or circumspection in either Hardy's or Blondell's interchange - but unlike today you don't know or care whether Hardy is gay or straight, just that he's a great director and yes, he has gone a bit soft on Erwin. I need to research Sam Hardy, but his cameo here is superb.
And what else can one say about Joan Blondell, other than to say that the 26-year old she is in this movie could step into 2007 and deal with it just fine? - truly, completely liberated, but still with a tenderness to the conventional morality that she bows to but knew was slipping away. I don't know who insisted on down-playing the romantic angle between the role of Menton Gill and 'Flips' Montague, but this also makes the movie startling. Menton Gill could be gay and Flips just a 'girl-friend' - they really are equals here, whose only real sexuality is the desire to perform.
I taped this movie onto a DVD and am sitting my 5 and 8 year-old daughters down to watch this as soon as I can budget 1.5 hours for the three of us (or four, if Mom wants to join) to enjoy this together and to understand its lessons. It is a perfect antidote to the silly point our culture has come to, where celebrity qua celebrity is all that matters, and at least in the ephemera, talent is irrelevant. This movie reminds us that talent is everything, and there is a great price to pay for it.
Stuart Irwin's acting is a tour-de-force: absolutely astounding at every turn, and the final scene had me in tears: Laugh if you well, his statement "I'm a clown" reminded me of the great aria "Rire Pagliacco" from Il Pagliacci - it was that kind of moment - the self-conscious realization that the actor and the role were one, but in contrast to the opera, here the clown accepts his fate rather than fighting it.
Ruth Donnelly has a cameo role and is her usual work-horse self - always great to see the old girl, and let's all work to put her into the pantheon of great stars, for she certainly was. The brilliance of her acting is that she doesn't thumb her nose at conventional morality, she doesn't know it exists. She is too busy in the day-to-day to understand the oppression of woman, but if confronted, she will make it clear that others may be oppressed, but she ain't (and you'll learn the hard way soon if you don't agree with her).
I do not know if the 1924 play includes the homosexual innuendo found in this movie, when Joan Blondell says to Sam Hardy, "You're not going soft on him, are you?" Regardless, this moment is fine, and there is no shame or circumspection in either Hardy's or Blondell's interchange - but unlike today you don't know or care whether Hardy is gay or straight, just that he's a great director and yes, he has gone a bit soft on Erwin. I need to research Sam Hardy, but his cameo here is superb.
And what else can one say about Joan Blondell, other than to say that the 26-year old she is in this movie could step into 2007 and deal with it just fine? - truly, completely liberated, but still with a tenderness to the conventional morality that she bows to but knew was slipping away. I don't know who insisted on down-playing the romantic angle between the role of Menton Gill and 'Flips' Montague, but this also makes the movie startling. Menton Gill could be gay and Flips just a 'girl-friend' - they really are equals here, whose only real sexuality is the desire to perform.
I taped this movie onto a DVD and am sitting my 5 and 8 year-old daughters down to watch this as soon as I can budget 1.5 hours for the three of us (or four, if Mom wants to join) to enjoy this together and to understand its lessons. It is a perfect antidote to the silly point our culture has come to, where celebrity qua celebrity is all that matters, and at least in the ephemera, talent is irrelevant. This movie reminds us that talent is everything, and there is a great price to pay for it.