Movies - The Gang's All Here

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	Movies - The Gang's All Here

The Gang's All Here is a 1943 musical film produced and released by Twentieth Century Fox. Its stars included Alice Faye, James Ellison, Edward Everett Horton, Charlotte Greenwood, Eugene Pallette, Benny Goodman, and, in one of her most memorable roles, Carmen Miranda. It was directed by Busby Berkeley.

The film exhibits both the strengths and weaknesses of the musical films produced at Fox in the 1940s. It is visually striking, making lavish use of the period's saturated color-film technology, extravagant sets that range from an ocean liner that morphs into a New York nightclub stage to eye-popping musical number fantasy sets (including a multi-story version of Miranda's trademark banana hat), and costumes that showcase the era's exaggerated fashions.

The performances range from the competent -- Ellison, and, as an annoying debutante, Sheila Ryan -- to the inspired. Greenwood, in her element as a Matron With A Past, and Horton, as a befuddled plutocrat, add a welcome comic boost to the proceedings. Faye was rarely better showcased, with songs including the moving wartime ballad "No Love, No Nothin'" and the boisterous "Polka Dot Polka" (which proves the setting for some of Berkeley's most surreal choreography, including a roster of chorus girls dancing with neon hula hoops). Miranda, as a rapacious cabaret star, gleefully mangles the English language, romances any man who crosses her path, and performs both "The Tutti-Frutti Hat" and a chorus of Goodman's "Paducah," as well as an insinuating, witty version of "You Discover You're in New York" that lampoons contemporary fads, fashions, and wartime shortages.

In the end, though, The Gang's All Here succeeds better as a collection of wild moments (Greenwood, on seeing Miranda for first time: "I'd better watch out for my bell pulls and lampshades!") and wilder visuals (Miranda amidst a sea of chorines carrying vast strawberries and bananas they arrange into Berkeley's familiar patterns) than as first-rank musical. The plot (playboy soldier falls for singer; is promised to debutante; comes to his senses) is serviceable at best and, in the end, simply stops, as if enough time had been filled, to make way for a swift resolution of the Faye-Ellison romance and a big finale.

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