Last New Years Day I watched FOOTLIGHT PARADE, and, having seen GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 and 42ND STREET a couple of weeks before, I resolved to watch all the subsequent Busby Berkeley musicals during the year. I had to skip a few to make it to this 1943 classic for this years New Years Day, though: Im not much of a binge-watcher, and getting through all those insipid plots just for the sake of a few splendid production numbers was starting to become a bit of a chore. On the other hand, watching only the production numbers would be cheating, and kind of pointless anyway, like having a dinner consisting only of desserts (though that might be some Berkeleyites idea of a healthy meal). THE GANGS ALL HERE is a movie of which someone (maybe Pauline Kael) wrote in The New Yorker in 1976: Those who consider Berkeley a master consider this film his masterpiece. Well, I do consider Berkeley a master in his (admittedly limited) field, but I wouldnt rank this one alongside his best work for Warner Brothers in the 30s. None of the Warren-Robin songs is as memorable as the Warren-Dubin songs of the earlier musicals, and having a tune that you dont mind hearing repeated over and over again is essential for musical numbers that can last up to ten minutes. More importantly, the cheesy wartime propaganda and garish Fox Technicolor that Berkeley was working with here gave such a free reign to his campy side of his sensibility that the peculiar beauty found in some of his WB numbers is all but missing here: its just kitsch atop more kitsch. In fact, although theres a lot of tedious plotting (and some fairly good comedy) going on between the numbers, the movie has just the kind of all-desserts feel that I described above. Still, its hard to dislike a musical that has numbers like the one below. Too bad Berkeleys influence wasnt more widely felt in Finland, and no one made a response to this number featuring gigantic Karelian pasties.
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 15:15:47 +0000
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