THE STAR MAKER: A 1939 REVIEW

The Star Maker is a seldom seen Bing Crosby film that would turn 80 years old this year. It's a pretty good flick, and here is the original movie review from the NY Times of August 31, 1939...

"The Star Maker," the new Bing Crosby film at the Paramount, was inspired (to employ a euphemism) by the career of Gus Edwards, a show-minded Pied Piper who used to swing around the old vaudeville circuits followed by precocious little song and dance teams—the girls in sunbonnets, the boys in newsies' tatters—who grew up, or at least some of them did, to become Walter Winchell, George Jessel, Eddie Cantor and Mervyn LeRoy. So it is possible that among the tiny tots, the not-so-tiny-tots and the not-tots at all recruited by Paramount for its interminable Gus Edward revue there may be a future Fred Astaire, Alice Faye, Vera Zorina or even a Bing Crosby. And if so, what of it?

Mightn't it have been better to have waited a few years to see?If we have to take a stand on the problem of talented children, and "The Star Maker" demands it, it is this: we think it is perfectly marvelous for a 5-year-old to be able to toe-dance, for a 6-year-old to be able to do a buck and wing, for a group of under-tens to be able to do a shuffle-off-to-Buffalo together, but if you don't mind we'll give our seat to a proud parent and go somewhere to watch the professionals do it. We believe the young should be encouraged, encouraged to rehearse and practise and grow up in private so that no one will have to say, as we must, "aren't they remarkable for children!"There isn't much more to the picture.

Mr. Crosby sings in his usual lullaby manner and hasn't many good lines to play with. Ned Sparks sneaks away with a comic scene or two as the child-hating press agent who has to tell bedtime stories and spins a grim whopper about the mean old wolf who gobbled up the little kiddies. Linda Ware, 14 years old, sings with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (Walter Damrosch conducting) in a clear, if slight, soprano which probably is better than its recording and projection: the sound gadget wheezed in the higher register. But it is all, if Mr. Edwards will pardon us, too much like a Gus Edwards revue and far too much of that.

THE STAR MAKER, screen play by Frank Butler, Don Hartman and Arthur Caesar based on a story by Mr. Caesar and William A. Pierce suggested by the career of Gus Edwards; directed by Roy Del Ruth; produced for Paramount by Charles R. Rogers.

Larry Earl . . . . . Bing Crosby

Mary . . . . . Louise Campbell

Jane Gray . . . . . Linda Ware

"Speed" King . . . . . Ned Sparks

Carlotta Salvini . . . . . Laura Hope Crews

Stella . . . . . Janet Waldo