First released in late 1943, The Gang’s All Here, a visual candybox of Technicolor treats, first reemerged to dazzle audiences in the nostalgia boom of the early 1970s. One of a string of Hollywood “Good Neighbour Policy” musicals of the war years, this lavish Fox production boasted some of the most popular stars of the period: honey-voiced singer Alice Faye, who crooned two immediate wartime standards for the GIs and the girls they left behind (“No Love, No Nothin’” and “A Journey to a Star”), and Brazilian bombshell Carmen Miranda, of the ever-outrageous costumes, millinery creations, and fractured English, while bobby-soxers could jive to some swinging numbers by Benny Goodman and his Orchestra (“Minnie’s in the Money”; “Paducah”). Camera-boom-riding choreographic genius Busby Berkeley was given full rein to weave his magic in full 3-strip Technicolor for the first time, and he pulled out all the stops. The film contains two of his most spectacular, surreal production numbers: the fabulous camp classic “The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat” (Carmen Miranda and chorus girls literally go bananas!), which for obvious reasons set censors in a spin, and the film’s epic kaleidoscopic finale, a triumph of special photographic effects, starting with the “Polka Dot” ballet, a Dalíesque bolero of leotarded chorus girls, neon hoops, and coloured discs, which segues into a final rendition of “A Journey to a Star” in which all the film’s principals get to participate, even gravel-voiced character-actor Eugene Pallette. All of which will leave you stunned.

Catherine A. Surowiec