I normally hate musicals, but this one got past my defenses. It's because the flimsy showbiz story allows Berkeley to justify doing any dance sequence he wants, leading to some endlessly inventive and technically brilliant work that is allowed to exist for its own sake. It's also because it exists to be fun and charming, and make your troubles disappear for a couple hours. Berkeley just wants to entertain, and this film is endlessly entertaining.

It does have that Berkeley charm, but it's also rather dated in several aspects. The writing feels sharp, but a lot of it is so tailored to the height of the war, and the fads of the time, that most of it just isn't funny. The leading man is pretty mediocre and while the rest of the cast is better it still feels bland. Luckily that only matters when there aren't dance numbers, and while they aren't Berkeley's best they are entertaining.

Busby Berkeley goes to full phantasmagoria mode in this flimsy 40s musical, happily sneering at such concepts as believable narration or time-space continuum. Carmen Miranda gets to perform one of her most legendary numbers, "Lady in a Tutti Frutti Hat" relatively early in the film, and just as I thought the rest of the film suffers from having such a climatic moment in the first half of the movie, "Polka Dot Polka" scene starts...something which cannot be described, it must be seen.

Ridiculously fun. The plot is rather inconsequential, but still enjoyable... and besides, you don't need a whole lot of story in a musical. Berkeley tosses the story aside every 5 minutes for another song and dance number, and they're all delightful. The final number, "Polka Dot Polka," starts out a bit lame, but then it morphs into a surreal neon phantasmagoria of mind-melting weirdness. Alice Faye is kind of boring, and James Ellison is not much better, but the supporting cast is wonderful.