Make Me a Star / Merton of the Movies (DVD)

Stars in their eyes ' laughter in the aisles! Two famed funnymen portray small town hick and Hollywood hopeful Merton Gill in the comedic tale that was first a novel, a beloved (and periodically reprised) stage hit and a silent film. Stuart Erwin adds a wistful note to Merton's Tinseltown dream in 1932's Make Me a Star. Red Skelton shows his gift for turning situations into extended gags in 1947's Merton of the Movies. Both films include star cameos: the Erwin comedy includes then-current luminaries (Tallulah Bankhead, Maurice Chevalier, Claudette Colbert and Gary Cooper), and the Skelton romp offers players whose glory years were in the silent era (including Chester Conklin and Franklyn Farnum). In the 1950s, Erwin and Skelton would reach even wider audiences in TV shows bearing their own names.

Starring: Joan Blondell, Red Skelton, Virginia O'Brien, Stuart Erwin, Gloria Grahame, ZaSu Pitts, Ben Turpin, Leon Ames, Charles Sellon, Alan Mowbray, Florence Roberts, Charles D. Brown, Helen Jerome Eddy, Hugo Haas, Arthur Hoyt, Harry Hayden, Tom Trout, Dink Templeton, Ruth Donnelly, Douglas Fowley, Sam Hardy, Dick Wessell, Oscar Apfel, Tom Dugan, Oliver Blake, Katherine Clare Ward, Tim Ryan, Frank Mills, Phil Arnold, Polly Walters, Victor Potel, Bert Hanlon, Donald Kerr, Snub Pollard, Billy Bletcher, Duke Green, Ben Moselle, Bud Jamison, Drew Demarest, Nick Thompson, Fred Santley, Maurice Chevalier, Sylvia Sidney, Claudette Colbert, Charles Wagenheim, George Magrill, Gary Cooper, Mary Treen, Tallulah Bankhead, Steve Olsen, Clive Brook, Fredric March, Morris Ankrum, Eddie Dunn, Phillips Holmes, Jack Oakie, Frank Darien, Charlie Ruggles, Elmer Jerome, George Bunny, Tom Leffingwell, Pete Sosso, Wyndham Standing, Paul Scardon, Larry Wheat, Tom Murray, Frank Eldredge, Frank Marlowe, Robert E. O'Connor, Hal K. Dawson, Almira Sessions, James Davis, Billy Benedict, Walter Merrill, Ralph Dunn, Celia Travers, Frank Pharr, Eloise Hardt, Gordon Richards, Vesey O'Davoren, Constance Purdy, Charles Bates, Polly Bailey, Antonio D'Amore, Robert Milasch, Billy Curtis, Jack Sterling, King Mojave, Vernon Dent, Clarence Hennecke, Heinie Conklin, Chester Conklin, Helen Dickson, John Phipps

Rating: NR