The Star Maker (1939 film)

Plot

Loosely based on the life of Gus Edwards, the film follows the career of aspiring song writer Larry Earl (Crosby) who gives up his job as a night clerk and marries Mary (Louise Campbell). He is anxious to get his songs published and buys a piano which they can ill afford. He sees children performing in the street and has an idea to develop and produce their talent on stage. Initially he cannot obtain any bookings but Mary persuades an agent to give her husband a chance. The one night try-out is a success and he forms "Larry Earl Kiddie Productions" which in due course has 14 productions running in various towns. Larry Earl opens a Broadway musical called "School Days", the crowning point of his career, but halfway through the first performance it is closed down by the Children's Welfare Society as they will not allow children under 12 years of age to work past 10 p.m. All of Earl's productions have to be closed down too. Earl had developed the career of Jane Gray (Linda Ware) and he transfers her contract to Walter Damrosch and she performs for him at Carnegie Hall. Later Earl realizes that he can still use children on radio and the film closes with him singing with a children's chorus on a radio show.

Reception

Frank S. Nugent of The New York Times was not impressed. "“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...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... But it is all, if Mr. Edwards will pardon us, too much like a Gus Edwards revue and far too much of that."

Variety was far more positive. "Film is first-class entertainment, a lively combination of the conventional backstage story, which is played for comedy angles, and filmusical technique, that is up to best standards...Audiences will quickly and cheerfully respond to the gayety [sic] which pervades the film. . . . It’s the Gus Edwards repertoire of pop tunes which gives the film zest and the feeling that yesterday is worth remembering. ‘School Days’ is recreated in an elaborate production number, including an interpolation when Crosby, speaking directly from the screen to the film audience, invites and obtains a spirited if somewhat vocally uncertain choral participation."

Soundtrack

Bing Crosby recorded a number of the songs for Decca Records. "An Apple for the Teacher" (recorded with Connee Boswell) was a huge hit reaching the No. 2 position in the charts. "Go Fly a Kite" and "A Man and His Dream" also reached the top 10. Crosby's songs were also included in the Bing's Hollywood series.