Simply A Masterpiece

One of my all time favorites.

Admirable film.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

So OK, the plot of a Broadway producer who purposely makes flop shows so he doesn't have to pay his investors is quite familiar to every now. But this 1937 film comes 3 decades before Mel Brooks had a hit with this idea.This film stars Milton Berle in his first talkie feature film (yes he had been a boy actor in silent films) as a dope who gets stuck producing a show after crooked Jerome Cowan skips town. Berle doesn't know Cowan has swindled several people into backing the show. Harriet Hilliard (better known as Harriet Nelson) is to be the star of the show. There's also a guy (Joe Penner) trying to crash the show and an associate (Parkyakarkus) determined to keep him out.The film has several songs (Nelson and William Brady) and lots of comedy, with Penner and Parkyakarkus mangling the English language, and Berle (with Richard Lane) doing a long stock market skit. This is also the first showcase for Ann Miller (who was all of 14 years old).Others of note include Lorraine Krueger who dances and plays the girl friend, Patricia Wilder as the secretary, Dewey Robinson as one of the backers, starlets Frances Gifford and Hillary Brooke, Jan Duggan as an opera singer, and George Rosener as the doorman.The funniest bit may be the production number built around the jive dance called peckin' with Harriet Nelson as a peckin' bride.Of course both Harriet Nelson and Milton Berle would go on to become major television stars of the 1950s.

Thirty years before Max Bialystock over sold his show Springtime For Hitler in The Producers, Jerome Cowan was in that same racket in New Faces Of 1937. It wouldn't surprise me that Mel Brooks got his inspiration for his zany film from this zany film.Unlike Zero Mostel who took some direct action when catastrophe struck, Jerome Cowan who sold 85% of the show that Harriet Hilliard brought him from boyfriend William Brady takes a powder and hands it over to his assistant Milton Berle. It's going to take the divine hand of Providence to get Berle out of the pickle he was in.New Faces Of 1937 is a second banana comics convention. At the time of this film Berle wasn't the comic legend he became through television. He was among many in this film which also included Joe Penner, Bert 'the Mad Russian' Gordon, and Harry 'Parkyakarkus' Einstein. Against this quartet any player worth anything would have to be on as big a constant alert as the Strategic Air Command. The nominal male lead in the film is a rather colorless William Brady. But I suspect more well known singers wouldn't want to get into a film like this with so many crazy comedians.Gordon, Dewey Robinson, and Richard Lane are the backer who will have to sort things out if the show New Faces Of 1937 becomes a hit like Springtime For Hitler. Also in the cast is a young and twinkle-toed Ann Miller. Hilliard and Brady sing a couple of forgettable songs to make this classified a musical.But if zany unorthodox comedians is what you like you will think you died and went to heaven watching this film. Come to think of it, the cast is all there now.

Harriet Hilliard looked a good bet for stardom. She was pretty and a lovely singer. In "Follow the Fleet" she proved she could emote. But she was obviously happier as a band singer and she married orchestra leader Ozzie Nelson.In a plot eerily similar to "The Producers" Lester Cowan plays Robert Hunt, a crooked producer, who finds it financially more rewarding only to put on flops. He then collects the profits and leaves the investors in the lurch. He explains it in the film.Jimmy (William Brady) and Pat (Harriet Hilliard) have a great idea - a show featuring new faces and fresh talent. With Pat's $15,000 inheritance they think the show will be great. Hunt is skipping town and leaves Milton Berle in charge (thinking that he will keep to the tried and true method - hiring only the talentless.) But Berle, who is also a backer and smitten with Pat, wants to put on a good show.There is a lot of talent. A man who impersonates a woman having a bath and Derry Deane, a Shirley Temple look-a-like who plays the violin. Lorraine Krueger is Suzy, a sparkling blonde who does a snappy tap dance routine during auditions - "It Goes to Your Feet".Beautiful Frances Gifford is introduced in the finale. Ann Miller is introduced as "our new dancing discovery" - boy could she dance - it was over all too soon. This film could have done with more of her and Lorraine Krueger and less of the "funny" men. At least in "Radio City Revels" (1938)(a companion film to this one with some of the same cast) Ann Miller had the female lead.Joe Penner's name doesn't mean anything to me - but I can remember a little bald guy named Egghead, who appeared in some cartoons and had a lot of the same expressions and mannerisms.For RKO Radio in the late 30s (not including the Astaire/Rogers films) this was a splashy musical.

This movie was fascinating to me because it is a time machine back to the childhoods of other people. My father and mother would have been 16 when this movie was a hit. I grew up hearing about Joe Penner from them as my father would regularly do the "Wanna buy a duck?" line (and, unbeknownst to me I'd hear Penner in cartoons without realizing it). You haven't lived until you heard my Tony Soprano-like father saying "You wanna buy a duck?" Believe me, you'd buy...or else! :) And then, of course, there is the premise of the movie, which a young (11 years old when this movie came out) Mel Brooks either knowingly or unknowingly ripped off in The Producers. Of course. "Springtime with Hitler in Germany" could only come out of the laughably perverted mind of Brooks. But still...My parents, Mel Brooks, and I wonder how many other people were influenced by these comedians...Milton Berle...the voice of Harriet of Ozzie and Harriet fame who was quite the singer in her day...I found myself laughing at Penner myself, and it was as if I were in a time warp sharing a laugh with my now long gone parents in their childhood. What a gift.