The Gang's All High

Busby Berkeley's The Gang's All Here (1939) is as strange, wonderful and psychoactive as any film ever made. I showed it today in my Intro course and the kids reacted as they always do--technicolor. I sat there with my Cinerama smile watching them watching Berkeley at his whisky fueled, kaleidoscopic maddest. This film should not work. It has a razor thin plot, some of the worst acting in Hollywood history and Alice Faye sings the same song 5 times. None of this matters. The minute the first 6 foot banana comes out and Carmen Miranda starts to dance in her 8 inch heels, all is forgiven. The overhead shot of the aforementioned bananas being lowered onto a group of girls holding gigantic strawberries over their crotches is as filthy and delightful as any shot in any movie. And the film goes on, much like that, for nearly two hours.
It's a back stage musical, so I think my students are more likely to accept all the singing, as am I. I've never really liked the walking down the street, breaking into song MGM bullshit anyway. Not that there's anything realistic about Berkeley's film except the reason for the singing. The final scene in the movie is more surreal, and a lot more fun to watch, than Un Chien Andalou and nobody gets her eye cut in half. The "Polka Dot Polka", which opens with young children singing with dubbed soprano and deep bass, builds to an amazing Berkeley sound stage piece utilizing neon rings, insane costumes and, I kid you not, a kaleidoscopic shot of women dancing. It's celluloid LSD. The film ends with disembodied heads singing Alice Faye's favorite song one last time on a field of blue. And everyone in the audience claps, every time.
Why Berkeley was not a more prolific director is understandable; he was an insane drunk. Still, he left us with an amazing body of work and reminds me, every time I watch this movie, that film is sometimes best when watched with your mouth open. That 18 year old kids like it too restores my faith in humanity.