The Gang’s All Here **** (1943, Alice Faye, Carmen Miranda, Phil Baker, Benny Goodman) – Classic Movie Review 9,936

Busby Berkeley’s first Technicolor musical film The Gang’s All Here (1943) is a deliriously extravagant concoction with sexy star Alice Faye and gloriously camp Carmen Miranda. It was banned in Brazil! And the huge bananas sparked trouble with the US censor! 

Busby Berkeley’s first Technicolor musical film The Gang’s All Here [The Girls He Left Behind] (1943) is an outrageously  extravagant concoction from 20th Century Fox that brings back memories of his glory days with Warner Brothers.

The plot concerns soldier (James Ellison), who is forced to choose between sexy star Alice Faye (in her last musical before motherhood) and fiancée (Sheila Ryan). But that takes second place to the production numbers, especially Carmen Miranda’s gloriously camp ‘The Lady with the Tutti-Frutti Hat’. In this, Miranda enters in a gold cart pulled by gold oxen while wearing an enormous basket of fruit on her head, and dancing girls wave giant bananas around, producing an effect so shocking that the film was banned in Brazil! Meanwhile, the US censors demanded that the chorus girls must hold the bananas at the waist and not at the hip!

Miranda also performs a witty version of ‘You Discover You’re in New York’ satirising fads, fashions and wartime shortages. Other notable songs are ‘Polka Dot Polka’, ‘A Journey to a Star’, ‘No Love’, ‘No Nothing’ and ‘Brazil’. ‘Hail! Hail! The Gang’s All Here!’ (music by Theodore Morse and Arthur Sullivan, lyrics by Dolly Morse) is sung by a chorus during the opening credits.

The Gang’s All Here is a breathtakingly spectacular, fluffy fun entertainment that provided a glint of light in the dark days of war, and, arguably, it is also a work of art, surreal and silly at the same time. Composer Harry Warren writes the songs with lyricist Leo Robin.

It was Oscar nominated for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color (James Basevi, Joseph C Wright, Thomas Little).

Also in the cast are Phil Baker as Himself, Benny Goodman as Himself, Charlotte Greenwood, Edward Everett Horton, Eugene Pallette, Tony De Marco as Himself, Sheila Ryan as Vivian Potter, and Dave Willock, with Benny Goodman and His Orchestra and Bando da Lua as Themselves. June Haver Jeanne Crain and Jo-Carroll Dennison, who was Miss America of 1942, make their screen debuts.

It is produced by William LeBaron, who had set up an independent unit at the Fox studio, making mainly musicals. He fell out with Berkeley over budget trimming imposed by the War Production Board cost cutting all aspects of businesses in wartime.

Alice Faye, Phil Baker, and Carmen Miranda in The Gang’s All Here (1943).

The Gang’s All Here runs 103 minutes, is made and released by 20th Century Fox, is written by Walter Bullock (screenplay), Nancy Wintner (story), George Root Jr (story), and Tom Bridges (story), is produced by William Goetz William LeBaron, and is shot by Edward Cronjager.

It was released on December 24, 1943 as a wartime Christmas treat.

Faye was pregnant with her second daughter during filming, and it proved her last musical as a Hollywood superstar. She had a singing cameo in the 1944 Four Jills in a Jeep, but otherwise The Gang’s All Here is her last appearance in a musical film till State Fair (1962). She retired from the screen and only made one film in between, the drama Fallen Angel (1945).

It is the first colour film directed entirely by Berkeley, though he had directed dance numbers for the 1930 two-colour Technicolor film Whoopee!

Linda Darnell was to her first film dancing role, playing Vivian Potter, but she sprained her ankle during dance rehearsals. After recovering, she eloped with cinematographer Peverell Marley and was replaced with Sheila Ryan. Darnell and Marley married in 1943 and divorced in 1951.

Carmen Miranda is famed for her signature fruit hat outfit.

The cast are Alice Faye as Eadie Allen, Carmen Miranda as Dorita, Phil Baker as Phil Baker, Benny Goodman as Himself, Benny Goodman Orchestra as Themselves, Eugene Pallette as Andrew Mason Sr, Charlotte Greenwood as Blossom Potter Edward Everett Horton as Peyton Potter, Tony DeMarco as Himself, James Ellison as Andy Mason, Sheila Ryan as Vivian Potter, Dave Willock as Sgt Pat Casey, Bando da Lua as Themselves (Carmen Miranda’s Orchestra), Leon Belasco as Waiter, Brooks Benedict as Club New Yorker Patron, Jeanne Crain as Chorus Girl/ Pool Party Guest, Frank Darien as Stage Doorman, Johnny Duncan as Jitterbug Dancer, Herbert Evans as Club New Yorker Patron, Frank Faylen as Marine Sergeant, June Haver as Chorus Girl/ Hat Check Girl, Leyland Hodgson as Butler, Adele Jergens as Chorus Girl, Virginia Sale as secretary Miss Custer, Billie Seward as Dancer, and Lillian Yarbo as Maid.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9,936

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