Merton of the Movies

The Oxford Companion to American Theatre | 2004 | 700+ words | Copyright

Merton of the Movies (1922), a comedy by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly. [Cort Theatre, 398 perf.] Merton Gill ( Glenn Hunter) is so film struck that he has become the joke of the tiny Illinois town of Simsbury. When his preoccupation causes him to neglect his duties as clerk in Amos Gashwiler's general store and get fired, Gill immediately heads for Hollywood, where he is befriended by “Flips” Montague ( Florence Nash), a bathing beauty in a famous slapstick series. She lands him a small part in a film, but Gill is disillusioned by the crassness and deception all about him; however, he plods on. He is finally cast in a slapstick comedy, which he plays with such serious intensity that he becomes a star and marries “Flips.” Based on Harry Leon Wilson's series in the Saturday Evening Post, the play was generally acknowledged to be the 1920s' best spoof of Hollywood.

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Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Merton of the Movies." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 28 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Merton of the Movies." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. (May 28, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O149-MertonoftheMovies.html

Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Merton of the Movies." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Retrieved May 28, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O149-MertonoftheMovies.html

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