New Faces of 1937

Wasn't the movie Casablanca somehow more enjoyable before it was recognized, in film courses and elsewhere, as a classic?
--Joseph Epstein, "Where Have All the Critics Gone?", Commentary, April 2016

Casablanca, the happiest of happy accidents and the most decisive exception to the auteur theory.
--Andrew Sarris, The American Cinema (The University of Chicago Press, 1968).

Joseph Epstein represents the last defenders of the idea that movies can't be art, though his use of the word "somehow" in the above quote indicates that he is either unable or unwilling to make his case. Sarris later recanted on Curtiz but did not live long enough to write a detailed retraction.  I made a few comments about Curtiz and his best film(at least of the ones I've seen), The Breaking Point, on March 2, 2014.  There is much more to be said about Curtiz and his themes of love, betrayal and reconciliation but for the moment I just want to say how much I disagree with Joseph Epstein (not to be confused with Julius and Philip Epstein, who wrote the screenplay for Casablanca) and how questionable I find his use of the word "classic," almost as though it means moldy and outdated.  If he objects to the close reading of films as somehow inhibiting one's enjoyment of them I can only say I do not find that to be true.  I agree with Alberti that no amount of analysis can spoil my enjoyment of any work of art and to dismiss even the best movies as merely "entertainment" is to encourage mindlessness and to discard all the insights of perceptive critics such as Sarris, Robin Wood, Godard, Truffaut et al.  There probably should be a moratorium on the use of the word "classic," which once exclusively referred to the ancient Romans and Greeks and is now used, more often than not, to intimidate, e.g., "instant classic."   There was certainly a "classic period" of film, running approximately from Birth of a Nation in 1915 to Psycho in 1960, but this refers primarily to the way films were made and not the quality of individual films.

This is all leading up to my recommendation that Joseph Epstein watch more of Turner Classic Movies, where many of the films are more like time capsules than "classics."  It was as an example of its time that I recently enjoyed New Faces of 1937 on Turner.  Its director, Leigh Jason, made no attempt to express any personal vision but simply let old vaudeville performers and some genuine new faces do their shtick.  Typical of the humor was Joe Penner introducing himself as Seymour Seymour to a producer's secretary.  The secretary responded with "from Walla Walla, I suppose" and he countered with "no, Cin-cin- natti."  The plot, what there is of it, is the same as Mel Brooks used in The Producers (1967), i.e., many backers for a show designed to flop, so that producer Jerome Cowan can keep the money.  Milton Berle does his old stockbroker routine and Harriet Hilliard (who sang Irving Berlin beautifully in Follow the Fleet,1936) sings serviceable songs, with tenor William Brady, by Sammy Fain and Lew Brown, climaxing with "Peckin," in which the Three Chocolateers and other African-Americans, as well as the chorus girls, imitate chickens.  Ann Miller, then 14, contributes an over-energetic dance.