The Gang's All Here (1943)

Director:

Busby Berkeley

Writers:

Nancy Wintner (story) &
George Root Jr. (story) ...

Release Date:

24 December 1943 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Musical | Romance

Plot:

A soldier falls for a chorus girl and then has trouble because he is posted to the Pacific.

Plot Keywords:

Chorus Girl | Soldier | Dance | Singer | Nightclub

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar.

Cast

Alice Faye	...	Edie Allen
Carmen Miranda	...	Dorita
Phil Baker	...	Phil Baker
Benny Goodman	...	Himself
Benny Goodman Orchestra	...	Themselves
Eugene Pallette	...	Andrew Mason Sr.
Charlotte Greenwood	...	Mrs. Peyton Potter
Edward Everett Horton	...	Peyton Potter
Tony De Marco	...	Himself
James Ellison	...	Andy Mason
Sheila Ryan	...	Vivian Potter
Dave Willock	...	Sgt. Pat Casey
Bando da Lua	...	Themselves, Carmen Miranda's Orchestra

Also Known As:

The Girls He Left Behind (UK)

Runtime:

103 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Portuguese

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Brazil:12 | Australia:G | Finland:S | USA:Unrated

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

The production number "The Lady In The Tutti-Frutti Hat" ran into problems with the censors. The Hayes office at first considered the way the gigantic bananas were held in front of the dancers as being too "phallic". The problem was resolved by having the dancers hold the bananas at waist level rather than at hip level.

Goofs:

Boom mic visible: Boom mic shadow on wall as Edie enters Vivian's bedroom.

Quotes:

Dorita: [singing] Some people say I dress too gay, but every day I feel so gay, and when I'm gay I dress that way, is something wrong with that? Noooo!

Movie Connections:

Edited into Heavy Traffic (1973)

Soundtrack:

The Polka Dot Ballet

Yes, they have some bananas

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.