The Gang's All Here

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.

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.

Viewed April 14, 2017.

Spoiler alert! Cause I can't talk about this, without talking about the ending, when BB moves this into a completely different realm, that's not attached to its movie reality anymore. He basically says: "that central romance plot, you didn't give a rats ass about, well neither did I and I'm not even going to show how it's resolved." And while this doesn't fix the problem with the mediocre directing, it's hard to still criticize a movie that gives so little about its plot problems as this one.

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.

As I was sitting on my couch I felt an odd weightlessness... soon, I saw my consciousness leave my body and catapulted feverishly by an unseen force through a phantasmagoria of muted Technicolor and banana hats, leading on to infinity. There were monkeys, neon lights and disembodied heads. I conversed with the Gods. But on waking, I found I'd shit my pants and forgotten what They said.

Berkeley was a genius. Every musical number here is a technicolor kaleidoscope that's an absolute joy to bask in. The connective tissue in between isn't as great of course, but it doesn't have to be, and the numbers are pretty frequent. And every second Carmen Miranda is on screen is a campy miracle. With the costumes, the accent, the malapropisms and of course those fucking hats, she's basically a real-life cartoon.

watched: 2016, 2018

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.

I couldn't bring myself to care about anything that wasn't a musical number, but most of them were incredible and carried the film.

Colourful, over the top production number - quite dated but still entertaining.

Carmen Miranda, Edward Everett Horton, and Berkley's most phantasmagorically trippy dance numbers all in one film is almost too much kitschy, campy brilliance to take (on top of having almost as much meta-commentary on it's own artifice as Singin' in the Rain does). Gold Diggers of 1933 has the funnier, smarter script but this is all-around just the "most" Busby Berkeley musical, in brilliant technicolor that by all rights should only exist in my wildest dreams. This shit is bananas, literally.

Racist and sexist, awful and amazing, everything is a sorry-ass excuse for the ALL THE RAGE psychedelic dancing

Carmen Miranda steals the musical numbers with incredible visuals and, unfortunately, forgettable songs. But you wouldn't notice the music anyway with those colorful settings and Miranda's ridiculous dash of personality! Wonderful lady! Besides her you had the continued gag of mistaken courtships involving Edward Everett Horton & Charlotte Greenwood. Just watch for the long legged lady dance with that young lad and Horton getting smeared with kisses from Miranda! Super fun, but not a knock-out.