RKO intended New Faces of 1937 to be the first of a series, introducing either new talent, or performers from stage or radio, to motion pictures. Of the "new faces," only one, Ann Miller, had a significant movie career. Another, Milton Berle, later became the first television superstar. Several others were big stars at the time, but are now virtually forgotten. The plot, as is usually the case in films like these, is slight, a vehicle for a series of musical numbers and vaudeville routines. A crooked Broadway producer (Jerome Cowan) sells 85 percent of his shows to several backers, and makes sure all of them flop so he can pocket the money. If that sounds familiar, it's because Mel Brooks used the same plot device for his legendary film (and later stage musical), The Producers (1968).

New Faces of 1937 was Ann Miller's first film under contract at RKO. Miller, born Johnnie Lucille Collier in Texas in 1923, had been dancing since she was three. When she was 11, she moved with her mother to California, changed her name, and eked out a living dancing in nightclubs and scoring a few bit parts in the movies. Two years later, she was offered a contract to appear at a San Francisco nightclub, and was an immediate hit. Lucille Ball, then an RKO starlet, saw the show, and she and an RKO talent scout arranged for a screen test for Miller at the studio. RKO signed her to a contract, with the 14-year-old dancer claiming to be 18, and providing a phony birth certificate to prove it. Miller makes her featured appearance near the end of New Faces of 1937, introduced with a reference to her nightclub success. She twirls out a sensational routine, full of the spins and fast taps that would become her trademark. Audiences and critics, having endured several mediocre musical numbers, sat up and took notice. "Ann Miller doing good taps that drew a salvo at this screening," the Variety critic noted. In her next film, Stage Door (1937), Miller got a character to play, Ginger Rogers' dance partner, and some wisecracks to sling. And in her following picture, Radio City Revels (1938), RKO gave her star billing.

Milton Berle had one of his best movie roles in New Faces of 1937. Berle had been a child actor in silent films before moving into theater and vaudeville, where he became a headliner. By the mid-1930s, he was appearing regularly on radio, and becoming well known nationally. New Faces of 1937 was his first film as an adult performer, and gave him one of his best film roles, playing one of the duped investors who becomes the show's producer. It also features a classic Berle vaudeville skit, a hilarious stockbroker routine that's full of the shtick that would become his trademark as a television performer. The following year, Berle co-starred with Ann Miller in Radio City Revels, but appeared infrequently in films thereafter, devoting himself to radio in the 1930s and 40s. It was one of those radio shows, The Texaco Star Theater (1948), that launched Berle on his most successful career path, when he became the host of the television version of the show.

Harriet Hilliard, the leading lady of New Faces of 1937, would also go on to a major television career, as Harriet Nelson, wife of Ozzie and mother of David and Ricky, in the TV version of her real-life family. Hilliard was a band singer who joined Ozzie Nelson's orchestra in 1932, and married Nelson in 1935, appearing occasionally in films such as Follow the Fleet (1936), until the radio series The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1944), and the later television version of it, became her full-time job.

Two comics who are top-billed in New Faces of 1937 are almost unknown to today's audiences. But in the mid-30s, radio comedian Joe Penner (who plays Seymore) was one of the most popular stars in the country, and his trademark expression, "Wanna buy a duck?" was a national catchphrase. Elizabeth McLeod, in her book, Radio's Forgotten Years: Tuning Thru the Great Depression compares Penner's appeal to Pee Wee Herman's, and notes that Penner remained popular with children until his early death of a heart attack in 1941, at the age of 36.

The comedian billed as "Parkyakarkus" (real name Harry Einstein) has left a more lasting comic legacy, though his name may be unfamiliar. He developed the character of Parkyakarkus, a Greek diner owner, on the Eddie Cantor radio show, and his "Parky" character in New Faces of 1937 was a variation on it. During the making of the film, he met Thelma Leeds, who played Elaine. They got married and she retired to raise their three sons two of whom followed in their father's footsteps: writer-director-comedian Albert Brooks, and writer-comedian Bob Einstein (AKA Super Dave Osborne). Parky died with his boots on in 1958, having just delivered a comedy routine at a Friars Club roast of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

New Faces of 1937 did not do well at the box office, so RKO scrapped plans for a series. But the film remains a fascinating time capsule of 1930s entertainment, and provides a dazzling debut for one of the best dancers to ever appear in musical films.

Director: Leigh Jason
Producer: Edward Small
Screenplay: Nat Perrin, Philip G. Epstein, Irv S. Brecher, Harold Kussell, Harry Clork, Howard J. Green
Cinematography: J. Roy Hunt
Editor: George Crone
Costume Design: Edward Stevenson
Art Direction: Van Nest Polglase
Music: Lew Brown, Sammy Fain, Walter Bullock, Harold Spina, Ben Pollack, Harry James
Cast: Joe Penner (Seymore Seymore), Milton Berle (Wallington "Wally" Wedge), Parkyakarkus, Harriet Hilliard (Patricia Harrington), William Brady (Jimmy Thompson), Jerome Cowan (Robert Hunt), Thelma Leeds (Elaine Dorset), Lorraine Krueger (Suzy), Ann Miller (Dance Specialty).
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by Margarita Landazuri