The Gang's All Here

Busby Berkeley is best known as the very distinctive choreographer of the Gold Diggers series of musicals in the 1930s so it is little surprise that this, his first Technicolor musical on which his studio, 20th Century Fox, gave him complete directorial control, indulges in over-the-top production numbers.

In what is a wartime flag-waver, Alice Faye stars as an All-American showgirl who catches the eye of All-American serviceman, played by James Ellison. No need to worry about the routine perforamances or the templated plot however as in typical fashion it’s simply a pretext for song and dance. Whilst the film's opening is a marvellous piece of artifice, the two big production numbers are "The Lady In The Tutti Frutti Hat" with Carmen Miranda supported by a flotilla of chorus girls with giant bananas and the film's closer, "The Polka Dot Polka" which eventually segues into kaleidoscopic abstractions.

Approaching the tiresome Eugene Pallette and Edward Everett  Horton (over) do their familiar schtick whilst Benny Goodman and his band have a feature role with Goodman singing a natty little number with the line "Paducah, Paducah, if ya wanna you can rhyme it with bazooka".

If you like your musicals on the fruity side you won't be disappointed by The Gang's All Here.

 

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