Banana split

20th Century Fox pulled out all the stops for this Technicolor musical, "The Gang's All Here," directed by Busby Berkeley. There is a song at least every few minutes, wonderful singing, dancing, and comedy galore, and an absolutely threadbare plot. The story is of no consequence - the music is the thing, along with Carmen Miranda's gaudily-costumed numbers and delightful butchering of the English language.

This film was made to bolster spirits during the war and to sell war bonds, which is dealt with in part of the plot. I can't imagine anyone walking out of the theater with anything but a smile on their face.

Alice Faye is lovely and sings beautifully in her contralto, her main number being "A Journey to a Star." Miranda's big number, of course, is the classic "The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat" with the fabulous illusion at the end. Charlotte Greenwood gets to dance in "The Jitters" and she, Edward Everett Horton, and Eugene Palette provide excellent support. Benny Goodman's band is a standout, and I've always been a sucker for Benny's smooth, relaxed singing voice. Busby Berkeley's numbers are spectacular, particularly the finale - but somehow, I can't see it being done on someone's lawn! I agree with one of the posters, these Fox musicals need to be packaged into a collection and put out on DVD. They're too much fun to miss.

There are films whose plots are much worse. At least this film has funny moments with Charlotte Greenwood and whenever Carmen Miranda is on the screen.

But this film is a showcase for the two sequences choreographed by Busby Berkeley. Much has been written about them, but watching them never ceases to stimulate and amaze my senses. Berkeley's sense of space is so elastic -- you feel as if he could pan and zoom through miles of space and fill it with people, trees, bananas, anything! I don't think any of his Warner Bros. films used the zoom camera with as much daring (supposedly Carmen Miranda almost got knocked off the painted donkey during rehearsals of "The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat").

What is so special for me in these dance sequences is that the images and music are so well-constructed that you loose interest in following the plot and just revel and enjoy the images. People cease being human forms and become elements of color on a painted canvas, and then resume being human once again. It's all incredibly magical and more abstract than Berkeley had been or was able to achieve in the future. Stunning!

I'll get to the plot of "The Gang's All Here" in a minute, because the plot isn't the most memorable part of this movie. The most memorable part is the bananas.

About 20 minutes into the movie, a towering hat of Technicolor fruit appears on the screen, followed by its owner--'40s "Brazilian bombshell" Carmen Miranda. She proceeds to do a number called "The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat," accompanied by chorus girls who bear bananas. Six-foot-tall bananas that continuously droop and sprout until number's end, when the chorus girls, worn out by the burden of this mutated fruit, lay down for a long siesta on a stage dressed up like an island.

There's a reason this number occurs so early on: It takes you the rest of the movie to convince yourself you actually saw this in a 1943 movie.

But then, this is Busby Berkeley, a director who staged his musical numbers as though he was declaring war. And next to kitsch, war is pretty much the motivator here.

The wafer-thin story involves Andy (James Ellison), a soldier who woos and wins Edie (Alice Faye), a canteen dancer, the night before Andy goes off to World War Two. In what seems an instant, Andy gets decorated and returned home to a victory party thrown by the family of Andy's childhood sweetheart and fiancee--who, unfortunately for Edie, is not Edie.

Will the heartbreak be resolved? Do you really care? The plot is mostly an excuse for some snappy repartee between major '40s stars (in particular, Eugene Pallette and Edward Everett Horton are hilarious), and the kind of musical numbers that seem to drop out of thin air. (In a couple of scenes, Benny Goodman and his orchestra stroll by and do some songs just for the heck of it.)

"The Gang's All Here" is really a 1943 time capsule, but an eye-popping rouser of one. They don't make 'em like this anymore. They didn't make 'em much like this back then, either. It's not out on video or DVD, so look for its sporadic broadcasts on cable TV.

... from 20th Century Fox and director Busby Berkeley. The meager plot concerns Army sergeant on leave Andy Mason (James Ellison) who falls for nightclub performer Edie Allen (Alice Faye). The only problem is that Andy's already engaged to Vivian Potter (Sheila Ryan). Edie's flamboyant friend and co-worker Dorita (Carmen Miranda) tries to help, to mixed results. Also featuring Eugene Pallette, Edward Everett Horton, Phil Baker, Charlotte Greenwood, Tony De Marco, Dave Willock, Frank Faylen, June Haver and Jeanne Crain in their debuts, and Benny Goodman and His Orchestra.

The plot is naturally secondary to the musical numbers, several of which are bizarre, most notably "The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat", featuring chorus girls running around with giant bananas. Berkeley's camera moves around, under and above the action, shattering the pretense that these numbers are designed for a nightclub or theatrical audience, taking them strictly into the realm of cinema. The costumes are also eye-popping, even those worn in the non-musical scenes, and Miranda wears an assortment of outlandish hats. This marked the end of Alice Faye's star period. She had a cameo in the following year's Four Jills in a Jeep, and then a non-musical part in 1945's Fallen Angel, before entering into screen retirement for 17 years. The movie earned an Oscar nomination for Best Color Art Direction.

Some of ALICE FAYE's close-ups in THE GANG'S ALL HERE convince me that Technicolor was made to show off the charms of certain actresses--as Fox well knew with such beauties as Betty Grable and Linda Darnell under contract. Faye's blue eyes get all misty-eyed when she sings a ballad--and when she's supported by someone like CARMEN MIRANDA for colorful contrast, well--you can bet it's a musical worth seeing and hearing.

In this case--mostly worth seeing because of Busby Berkeley's magical treatment of all the musical numbers. Who can ever forget CARMEN MIRANDA and all those waving bananas??? Or the kaleidoscope effect of several top numbers in an imaginative use of color and camera effects, the kind that only Berkeley was a master of.

The flimsy plot is strictly by the numbers and practically non-existent in a boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl sort of way. JAMES ELLISON is a poor substitute for Fox's contract player John Payne, who must have been busy on another assignment when the cast was assembled. And PHIL BAKER is totally wasted.

But it's not too much of a distraction when the gaudy splashes of color, music and just downright fun provided by Faye, Miranda, Eugene Palette, Edward Everett Horton and Charlotte Greenwood come to the fore.

This is typical Fox escapism made for entertainment during World War II when the troops were all salivating over the Fox pin-up girls. Alice Faye is at her most attractive with her warm contralto voice showcased in a couple of hokey ballads and when she gazes heavenly toward some unseen spirit she practically melts the camera lens. She's luscious and so is the film.

And if you're a CARMEN MIRANDA fan, you can't afford to miss this one. Her "Tutti Frutti" number is a knockout and Benny Goodman and his band provide solid musical back-up. Just don't expect reality to butt in at any point during the silly plot.

Trivia note: That's ADELE JERGENS in the background of girls.