Customer Reviews

New Faces

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

One of my favourite films, it was lifted directly from the Broadway smash hit. I've waited long years for its release. An early Cinemeascope film, it exploited the increased width of field best seen in the full cast production numbers. This show launched several careers. Robert Clary went on principally to Hogan's Heroes. Ronny Graham appeared in several TV sitcoms and Mel Brooks movies. (Mel was a co-writer of the sketches in this show.) Paul Lynde made several comedy appearances as well as TV sitcoms and his own TV show. Alice Ghostley also went into TV sitcoms and movies, most notably "Grease". One of the revue's songs, "Guess who I saw today?", was delivered in a deadpan fashion but was to be picked up years later by Nancy Wilson who turned it into a stunning torch song. For me the star of the show was the then newly-discovered Eartha Kitt. She sings "Santa Baby", "Uska Dara", "C'est si bon" and the showstopper "Monotonous" which shows us why Orson Welles labelled her the sexiest woman on the planet. This DVD has been lifted directly from a mediocre film print with patchy colour, splices and some image and sound damage. Still, for me, better than no release at all.

Paul Lynde and Alice Ghostley ("Bewitched"), Robert Clary ("Hogan's Heroes"), Carol Lawrence and especially Eartha Kitt all made their initial impressions in this classic revue first on Broadway in 1952. Highlights include Ghostley, Lynde and Ronny Graham in a spoof of the Arthur Miller/Clifford Odets genre entitled "Of Fathers and Sons" written by Mel Brooks; Ghostley's solo by Sheldon Harnick, "Boston Beguine"; Lynde's self-penned parody "Trip of the Month" and the grisly/funny hoedown finale "Lizzie Borden". The lame "plot" attached to the original (which had none) is hard to sit through and some of the performers are easier to take than others. Eartha Kitt's solos reveal how little she has changed in the past 50 years, at least in persona and material. But as one of the few records of the late-era Broadway revue, this is a must-see.

Movie was wonderful But this transfer to DVD is a travesty! The color shifts from red to pink to orange without warning and certainly not to the intent of the original producers of the movie! Don't understand why this fine movie was released this way on DVD. If you loved the original movie, don't get this one. The CCM version of this DVD is exactly the same, by the way. Wait until Twentieth Century-Fox decides to put this one out on DVD (the original releasing company).

OK, this "movie" isn't for everyone, but it's historical value can't be denied. It may be the first B'way show pretty much filmed in its entirety ... and the way it looked on stage. "New Faces of 1952" ran nearly a year and was the most successful of Leonard Sillman's many "New Faces" revues. (It was even briefly revived some 30 years later, with a different cast doing the same material.) Eartha Kitt was the show's breakout performer, but many other newcomers went on to memorable stage and tv careers, among them Paul Lynde, Alice Ghostley, Ronny Graham and Carol Lawrence (still a few years away from "West Side Story.") In 1954, 20th Century Fox was still touting its new ultra-wide CinemaScope process and shot a number of offbeat projects demonstrating its diversity. (Among 1954's other Fox offerings was Otto Preminger's musical "Carmen Jones"). The cast of "New Faces" was brought to Hollywood and the show was filmed, with a flimsy backstage plot added to tie the material together for the folks in Kansas. Five or six sketches and musical numbers were cut, and a couple of new songs added for Kitt, who had already become pop sensation. (She didn't sing her trademark "Santa Baby" and "Uska Dara" on stage.) The film was hastily made and may be the cheesiest-looking Fox musical of all time. It was a decided oddity when it came out (and I first saw it on screen at age 11.) The topical material (a spoof of Congress investigating jazz, or a jab at Southern "degenerate" literature) falls pretty flat now, but some of the stuff is still amusing (a spoof of "Death of a Salesman," "Golden Boy" and other heavy-weight dramas of the time among them). The sketches have the feel of early TV programs, like "Your Show of Shows," which isn't surprising since writers like Mel Brooks, who contributed to those, wrote for this show. The musical numbers fare better, though only two or three songs survived the show ("Love is a Simple Thing" became Jack Paar's theme song on his "Tonight" show, and "Lizzie Borden" - the film's liveliest number - was a Chad Mitchell Trio standard.) Apparently Fox did not renew the copyright on the film and it's fallen into public domain. It's surprising any copies remain out there, but at least one print was found and a couple of DVD companies have used it. It's not a very good one; the color from the DeLuxe process has faded and shifted, and the film appears not to be entirely intact. It's been transferred to video in some ghastly process that cuts the sides of the full wide-screen image, looks out of focus and solarizes the blacks.(What did they do? Project the film and video it?). Also, the film was released in 4-track stereo and all you get is mono here. Yes, the downside is pretty steep but it's good a record of some sort remains of this quaint, bygone stage hit.

I saw New Faces of 1952 on Broadway the year it opened. I didn't know it then, but that was probably the greatest array of talent ever seen at one time on a Broadway stage. The only disappointment I had was they dropped one of my favorite sketches: Alice Ghostley singing "Love is a Simple Thing" from the perspective of a Charles Addams character (Love is a simple thing; love is a poison ring - shiny as a coffin nail, gay as a widow's wail. Love makes an old heart stop. Love is the mating call, when you've sealed him in the wall. Love is a simple thing!) Also, by making the lady who introduces each act the daughter of the show's backer, it seems to leave you wondering about "he takes me off his income tax". In the play, she was "a friend of the producer". The sound may be less than perfect, and the visual not the best, but for me it was a thrill to see all these great performers at the start of their careers more than 50 years ago. By the way, for many years, Ronny Graham was a writer, consultant, and advisor for M*A*S*H on TV.

I had expected a better picture quality for a digital transfer. I looks like a pirated picture from a movie theater. The sound is 1950's motion picture sound without enhancement.

I attended a Chicago high school from 1950 to 1954. A girl I was dating had an LP of New Faces of 1952 and we used to listen to it constantly; so much so that I bought a copy for myself. When the film version was released during the summer of 1954, I was a counselor at a YMCA camp in Michigan. On the only full day off that summer, we'd go to Lundington. Much to my amazement, New Faces was the movie of the day or week.
In watching and listening to the DVD I sang many of the songs along with the performers. Amazing that I'd remember most of the tunes after 55 years. But I didn't see one of the more memorable songs on the DVD that I'm sure was in the original movie. It was "Guess Who I Saw Today?" I wonder why?
Even thought the picture and sound quality leave a lot to be desired, the performances are wonderful and bring back good memories.
Eartha Kitt alone is worth the price.

enjoyable and nostalgic but i really need to buy the cd for a more intense enjoyment. i loved, loved, loved the original cd.

I purchased this product for nostalgia--I saw the stage show in San Francisco in 1953. As nostalgia, it was most enjoyable; as theater in today's high tech expectations, it is underwhelming. If you would enjoy seeing these fledging stars in their professional infancy (Eartha Kitt, Paul Lynde, Robert Clary, Alice Ghostley9, I heartily recommend it. The technical quality is uneven; some scenes are, in a word, terrible. I also bought the separate music on a CD and the sound quality on it is much better. I listen to the CD often, but will watch the DVD infrequently.

New Faces of 1954, in its Broadway form, was clever and great fun. The video version, which introduces a silly plot and changes the order of the skits from the original, loses some of the original vitality, but enough is left to reward the aficienado. And no one can ever hear enough of the young Eartha Kitt.