Pick a Star (1937) - Turner Classic Movies

Brief Synopsis

A young innocent in Hollywood enlists a publicist's help in her search for stardom.

Cast & Crew

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Edward Sedgwick

Patsy Kelly

Jack Haley

Rosina Lawrence

Mischa Auer

Lyda Roberti

Film Details

Genre

Comedy

Musical

Romance

Release Date

May 21, 1937

Premiere Information

not available

Production Company

Hal Roach Studios, Inc.; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp.

Distribution Company

Loew's Inc.

Country

United States

Technical Specs

Duration

1h 10m

Sound

Mono

Color

Black and White

Theatrical Aspect Ratio

1.37 : 1

Film Length

8 reels

Synopsis

In the small town of Waterloo, Kansas, Eddie Stone, who claims to be a movie producer, holds a beauty contest, the first prize of which is a part in a movie. Just before Nellie Moore's pretty sister Cecilia is about to be crowned the winner, however, Cecilia's boyfriend, Joe Jenkins, finds out that Stone is a phony and has skipped town with all of the entrance fees. Nellie faints at the news, after which Joe decides to sell his garage and move to Hollywood to see if he can help make Cecilia a star. Some time later, Joe has gotten a job at the Colonial Club, which sends live broadcasts to the Midwest. While Nellie and Cecilia are listening to one of the broadcasts, they hear an emergency airplane landing, and discover that star Rinaldo Lopez, is on board. After being hospitable to the travelers, Nellie and Cecilia are offered plane tickets to Hollywood by Mr. and Mrs. MacGregor, who decide that they now prefer train travel. Nellie sends Joe a telegram telling him they are coming and in Hollywood they check into a swank hotel, because Rinaldo tells him that they should stay at an "important" address. Joe never gets the telegram, however, and when Rinaldo takes Cecilia and Nellie to the Colonial Club later that evening, Joe, who is a waiter there, has to pretend that he is part of the floor show because he has written to the girls that he is a now a successful performer. When Nellie discovers that Joe has been lying, she is angry and leaves. Going after Nellie, Joe runs into the street and is hit by the car of Mr. Klawheimer, the head of a motion picture studio. Because Klawheimer wants to avoid a lawsuit, he gives Joe a job as a studio driver. At the same time, Rinaldo takes the girls to the studio to watch musical star Dagmar shoot a number for her new picture. They are fascinated by the big production number and excited to meet comedians Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Later, while Nellie is busy watching a fight scene set in a Mexican Cantina, Rinaldo invites Cecilia to his apartment and she innocently accepts. Unknown to them, however, Joe is their driver and when he realizes what Rinaldo is up to, he returns to the studio for Nellie. While Joe is gone, Cecilia begins to realize what Rinaldo is really like. When Joe and Nellie return, Cecilia is crying, prompting Nellie to knock Rinaldo out cold. Joe stays to revive Rinaldo when Cecilia and Nellie leave, and the remorseful Rinaldo says that he will try to get Cecilia a job in pictures. The next day, Cecilia is ready for her big test. After Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy break a mirror, which assures Nellie that her sister will have bad luck, Cecilia goes ahead with the test and gets very nervous. To help her out, Joe enters the scene and sings a duet with her, and they fantasize that they are in a real Hollywood production number. After the test, the studio executives are truly impressed.

Director

Edward Sedgwick

Cast

Patsy Kelly

Jack Haley

Rosina Lawrence

Mischa Auer

Lyda Roberti

Stan Laurel

Oliver Hardy

Charles Halton

Tom Dugan

Russell Hicks

Mr. [Eddie] Stone

Cully Richards

Spencer Charters

Sam Adams

Robert Gleckler

Joyce Compton

Johnny Arthur

James Finlayson

Walter Long

Wesley Barry

Assistant director

John Hymans

Leila Mcintyre

Benny Burt

Otto Fries

Howard Brooks

Margie Ronnberg

Miss Gopher City

Mary Blackwell

Miss Apple Valley

Alice Moore

Miss Centerville

Al Williams

Brooks Benedict

Stone's henchman

Sid Saylor

Charles Bachman

Studio policeman

Charles Mcmurphy

Studio policeman

Eddie Kane

Wilbur Mack

Blair Davies

Ralph Malone

Barbara Weeks

May Wallace

Edward Clayton

Barney Carr

Assistant to Johnson

Robert Mcclung

Harmonica player

Jack Norton

Eddie Hart

Jack Egan

Orchestra leader

Crew

R. Alex Anderson

Norbert Brodine

Edward Court

Dances staged by

Thomas J. Dugan

Original story and Screenplay

Richard Flournoy

Original story and Screenplay

Marvin Hatley

Arthur Vernon Jones

Original story and Screenplay

Johnny Lange

Arthur Morton

William Randall

Hal Roach

Arthur I. Royce

Ernest Schrops

Roy Seawright

Photography Effects

Edward Sedgwick

W. L. Stevens

Fred Stryker

William Terhune

Film Details

Genre

Comedy

Musical

Romance

Release Date

May 21, 1937

Premiere Information

not available

Production Company

Hal Roach Studios, Inc.; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp.

Distribution Company

Loew's Inc.

Country

United States

Technical Specs

Duration

1h 10m

Sound

Mono

Color

Black and White

Theatrical Aspect Ratio

1.37 : 1

Film Length

8 reels

Articles

Pick a Star

March 24, 2005

The producer of Edward Sedgwick's 1937 comedy Pick a Star had a very interesting work history before he started his production company at age 22. He did everything from gold mining to mule skinning. He even served for a time as a stunt man in early Westerns and action movies. The name is Roach - Hal Roach. After he started his production company, Roach's mule skinning-gold mining days were over. He began working with such major talents as Harold Lloyd, Leo McCarey, and the comedy team of Laurel and Hardy, just to name a few. Although Roach was known mostly as a producer, he also wrote and directed many of the films that his company made.

Initially, Roach just produced comedy shorts, but by the twenties (he started the company in 1915), he began to diversify his film projects and started churning out feature films, dramas, Westerns, and action pictures. He also began, in the late twenties, to concentrate on promoting his most profitable talents - Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chase, and Our Gang, all of which had become very popular. Roach went on to win Academy Awards for two of his film shorts - The Music Box (1932) and Board of Education (1936).

Roach's production, Pick a Star, is the tale of a naive, smalltown girl (Rosina Lawrence) from Iowa who wins a trip to Hollywood as part of a talent contest. She quickly realizes upon arriving in Los Angeles that it's just a meaningless publicity stunt and that no studio is really interested in giving her a screen test. That all changes when she is befriended by publicity man Joe Jenkins (Jack Haley). Despite the cliched plot of an unknown becoming a major star, Pick a Star works best as a clever pastiche of funny sight gags, wisecracks, and vaudeville routines featuring guest stars like Laurel and Hardy. The latter have a wonderful musical duel which ends with Laurel performing "Pop Goes the Weasel" on Hardy's stomach.

A few years after Hal Roach produced Pick a Star, he began working closely with his son Hal Roach Jr. on such atypical features as One Million Years. B.C. (1939) (originally assigned to D.W. Griffith) and Of Mice and Men (1939) - probably the most acclaimed production of his career. Roach also served in WWII, producing training films for the Army and the Air Force. After the war, Roach made an unsuccessful attempt at television production but he came out of retirement in the late sixties to produce a compilation film - The Crazy World of Laurel and Hardy.

Director: Edward Sedgwick
Producer: Hal Roach
Screenplay: Richard Flournoy, Arthur V. Jones, Thomas J. Dugan
Cinematography: Norbert Brodine
Music: R. Alex Anderson, Johnny Lange, Fred Stryker
Art Direction: Arthur I. Royce
Cast: Patsy Kelly (Nellie Moore), Jack Haley (Joe Jenkins), Rosina Lawrence (Cecilia Moore), Mischa Auer (Rinaldo Lopez).
BW-70m.

by Rod Hollimon

Pick a Star

The producer of Edward Sedgwick's 1937 comedy Pick a Star had a very interesting work history before he started his production company at age 22. He did everything from gold mining to mule skinning. He even served for a time as a stunt man in early Westerns and action movies. The name is Roach - Hal Roach. After he started his production company, Roach's mule skinning-gold mining days were over. He began working with such major talents as Harold Lloyd, Leo McCarey, and the comedy team of Laurel and Hardy, just to name a few. Although Roach was known mostly as a producer, he also wrote and directed many of the films that his company made. Initially, Roach just produced comedy shorts, but by the twenties (he started the company in 1915), he began to diversify his film projects and started churning out feature films, dramas, Westerns, and action pictures. He also began, in the late twenties, to concentrate on promoting his most profitable talents - Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chase, and Our Gang, all of which had become very popular. Roach went on to win Academy Awards for two of his film shorts - The Music Box (1932) and Board of Education (1936). Roach's production, Pick a Star, is the tale of a naive, smalltown girl (Rosina Lawrence) from Iowa who wins a trip to Hollywood as part of a talent contest. She quickly realizes upon arriving in Los Angeles that it's just a meaningless publicity stunt and that no studio is really interested in giving her a screen test. That all changes when she is befriended by publicity man Joe Jenkins (Jack Haley). Despite the cliched plot of an unknown becoming a major star, Pick a Star works best as a clever pastiche of funny sight gags, wisecracks, and vaudeville routines featuring guest stars like Laurel and Hardy. The latter have a wonderful musical duel which ends with Laurel performing "Pop Goes the Weasel" on Hardy's stomach. A few years after Hal Roach produced Pick a Star, he began working closely with his son Hal Roach Jr. on such atypical features as One Million Years. B.C. (1939) (originally assigned to D.W. Griffith) and Of Mice and Men (1939) - probably the most acclaimed production of his career. Roach also served in WWII, producing training films for the Army and the Air Force. After the war, Roach made an unsuccessful attempt at television production but he came out of retirement in the late sixties to produce a compilation film - The Crazy World of Laurel and Hardy. Director: Edward Sedgwick Producer: Hal Roach Screenplay: Richard Flournoy, Arthur V. Jones, Thomas J. Dugan Cinematography: Norbert Brodine Music: R. Alex Anderson, Johnny Lange, Fred Stryker Art Direction: Arthur I. Royce Cast: Patsy Kelly (Nellie Moore), Jack Haley (Joe Jenkins), Rosina Lawrence (Cecilia Moore), Mischa Auer (Rinaldo Lopez). BW-70m. by Rod Hollimon

Quotes

Trivia

Notes

In the opening credits, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy's pictures are shown just after Lyda Roberti's name and their theme music is heard on the soundtrack, but they are not otherwise credited in the opening or end credits. In the film they are refered to as "Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy." During their brief appearances in the film they do not speak. According to a Hollywood Reporter production chart, Patricia Kay and June Ray were also in the cast, however, their participation in the released film has not been confirmed. The same chart also includes "Our Gang" in the cast, but no child actors from Hal Roach's "Our Gang" shorts could be identified in the viewed print.

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