Another hodgepodge musical from 1937 is RKO’s “New Faces of 1937” (the title including the actual release year for a change!), which featured a handful of popular radio stars.
RKO seems to have done the best job of bringing radio stars to the screen and letting them more or less play themselves.
The plot in these movies is usually just enough to hang the specialty numbers on, but “New Faces of 1937” has the story of a crooked producer overselling shares in shows he thinks will flop, very much anticipating the way more famous “The Producers” from Mel Brooks thirty years later!
The headliner here is Joe Penner, who was extremely popular back in the day, but is barely just a name to most modern audiences. I get a kick out of him, though!
The sheet music features a nice portrait of Harriet Hilliard, who of course is best-remembered as Harriet Nelson, wife of Ozzie and mother of David and Ricky.
For the song, here’s "Our Penthouse on Third Avenue" on the budget Melotone label as recorded by Gene Kardos and his Orchestra with a vocal by a young Bea Wain, shortly before she achieved star status with Larry Clinton‘s band:
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