Busby Berkeley: A Journey with a Star (2007 Video) User Reviews

Sort of a making of short for "The Gang's All Here"--with a strong emphasis on Busby Berkeley.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 30 August 2012]

This featurette is about the importance of "The Gang's All Here" to Busby Berkeley's career--first color film and last chance to salvage his failing career. By 1943 when the film debuted, Berkeley's weird and stagy style of choreography was becoming passé--and he was getting less and less work. How he suddenly got a huge budget and color film stock is something the film never explains. It also ignores Berkeley as a person, which is interesting, as he was one of the most hated men in Hollywood. Actors, in particular, couldn't stand him and he made it clear he felt the same way about the actors--which makes sense if you think about it, since Berkeley had a way of using actors like they were 'things' (especially in his huge dance numbers). All in all, a decent little featurette but one that also leaves out as much as it gives us. Worth seeing if you get the DVD for "The Gang's All Here"--especially since this short film is better than the feature.

Whether it's Fake News or Fake Film Musicals, Fox MegaCorp has never shied away . . .

[oscaralbert · 7/10 · 7 March 2017]

. . . from dredging the sewers for A FEW GOOEY MEN. After THE GANG'S ALL HERE Fox director Busby Berkeley went on a drunken bender, murdering a couple people in Los Angeles and wounding nearly a half dozen others, Warner Bros. dropped Busby's contract like a hot potato (though a Go Fund Me effort raised enough Moolah to get B.B. off his murder rap by bribing a few jurors for hung verdicts: it's just like the first Fox Fake News "Reality" Oval Office Occupant said: "Fox People can gun down babies at High Noon in Times Square, and laugh all the way to the bank!" Do we hear anything about the murders leading up to THE GANG'S ALL HERE from the two ill-informed clowns presenting BUSBY BERKELEY: A JOURNEY WITH A STAR? No Siree, Bob. When these Bozos did their retrospective for the 25th Anniversary DVD of NAKED GUN: FROM THE FILES OF POLICE SQUAD! there was no mention of NAKED star O.J.'s kerfuffle in Brentwood, either. So the Fatty Arbuckles of this world can keep poking away with their pointy icicles, secure in the knowledge that Fox Fake Family Values will package their murderous rampages as "Wholesome Entertainment."