It doesn't have Groucho in it but you still might want to set your TiVo (or for you cavepeople, VCR) and snag New Faces of 1937, which runs very early Wednesday morning on Turner Classic Movies. It's a great look at what Broadway was like back in the thirties, with performances by some pretty good comedic performers including Milton Berle, Joe Penner and Harry Parke. Mr. Parke went under the character name of Parkyakarkus and is probably best recalled today as the father of Albert Brooks and Bob Einstein. (Bob Einstein follows in the family tradition by maintaining his own dual identity. You know him better as "Super" Dave Osborne.) Joe Penner was a top radio comedian who is now best known for being oft-parodied in Warner Brothers cartoons. In fact, the early version of Elmer Fudd was something of a Joe Penner burlesque before he evolved into the Fudd we know and love.
New Faces of 1937 is filled with sketches, including Berle doing "A Day at the Brokers," which was a popular comedy routine of the thirties. There are also songs — Ann Miller's in there somewhere — but there's also a plot. What is this plot, you ask? Well, it's basically The Producers but without the Nazis.
While you're setting whatever machine you set, you might also want to get one or more of the movies TCM is running later that day. Following New Faces of 1937, they have Stage Door, which features Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Lucille Ball, Ann Miller, Eve Arden and Franklin Pangborn and is based on the George S. Kaufman-Edna Ferber play. Mr. Kaufman reportedly did not like what Hollywood did to his work and suggested they rename it Screen Door but it's not that bad, and Hepburn is wonderful in the role that she didn't get to play on Broadway. (It was written with her in mind but her agent and the producer could not arrive at a workable working arrangement.)
Then comes The Life of the Party, which also stars Joe Penner, Parkyakarkus and Lucille Ball, along with Billy Gilbert and Margaret Dumont. It was written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, who wrote so many wonderful things for Broadway and the Marx Brothers, and directed by William Seiter, who directed maybe my favorite Laurel and Hardy movie, Sons of the Desert. It's not a great film but there are moments that make it worth a viewing.
This is followed — they have sort of a theme going here — by the Marx Brothers version of Room Service, which also has Lucille Ball and Ann Miller in it. Both ladies are also in the next film, Too Many Girls, which is a faithful adaptation of the Rodgers and Hart Broadway hit. Desi Arnaz was the breakout sensation of the show when it played New York, and when RKO bought the movie rights, Desi came out with most of the cast to make the movie. Lucille Ball was added to that cast, the two of them met on the first day of rehearsal and…well, we all know what happened next. It's not a very good movie, by the way — silly plot, generally unmemorable songs and much of the cast — most obviously, Lucy — was badly dubbed.
These are followed by nine more movies that have Ann Miller in them…for those of you who like to see someone doing great, strenuous tap dancing without their hair moving a hundredth of an inch. Then they start on a binge of Jane Fonda flicks.