AllMovie

Everything worked in this charming comedy-drama which, surprisingly, was directed by William Beaudine, a notorious hack whose nickname, "One-Shot," was usually well-deserved. Here, Beaudine managed to elicit a fine performance from Stuart Erwin, an actor whose hayseed personality all too often became grating. Blondell, too, was never better and Sam Hardy, usually cast as nasty gangsters, enjoyed a welcome change of pace as a riotous comedy director-producer a la Mack Sennett. As an added benefit, Make Me a Star provided tantalizing behind-the-scenes glimpses of paramount in 1932, including cameo appearances of such stars as Tallulah Bankhead, Gary Cooper, Sylvia Sidney, Claudette Colbert and Maurice Chevalier. A third screen version of Merton of the Movies was filmed by M-G-M in 1947, this time with Red Skelton as the hapless grocery clerk.