Customer Reviews

The Gang's All Here

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For fans of this movie: yes, the newly remastered edition is much better than the 2007 release. Colors are back to their original super-saturated intensity. If you love this movie, and have the lackluster 2007 version, buy it again, and use the old copy as your "lend it to a friend" copy (which you'll most likely never see again, since everyone I've ever shown this movie to loves it immediately). It's worth the extra $15 or so to have it right this time. Get it.

AT LAST.

Fox never released this surreal film on VHS (why!?), and so it became one of those Holy Grail films that movie buffs have been waiting for (it was released on laserdisc ages ago, though I know of no one who actually owns it). It's great that we are finally getting the DVD.

Was lucky to see this in a theater in NYC 2 years ago, where the crowd loved every minute of it--especially the antics of Carmen Miranda. It does have the dumbest script of any musical I can think of, which is really saying something--especially when you consider other Fox wartime musicals.

On the big screen it LOOKS amazing: the color, the art direction, the costumes, the choreography, the neon hoops, the bananas. (UPDATE: Just watched the DVD--and sadly the color is not replicated very well...the print I saw was much, much richer than this. Oh well.)

How can you not love a movie where the whole cast is washed away by a fountain of purple water at the fade out? I'm not kidding.

Thank you Fox, Thank you.

20th Century Fox please release this film on DVD!!!

The first time I saw this movie I laughed so hard I nearly made
myself sick. This film starts off with an over the top production number "Brazil/You Discover Your In New York" which
makes you think that nothing in the film can ever get more campy. Alice Faye comes in with a couple of great numbers-
"A Journey to a Star" and "No Love, No Nothin'." But fasten your
seat belts because Carmen Miranda and Busby Berkley are about to
bring you "The Lady In the Tutti-Fuity Hat." This is easily one
of the most over the top musical numbers ever put on film. The
number is supposed to be on nightclub stage that must the size
of a small town. Bananas are everywhere including chorus girls
dancing with giant bananas!! At the end of the number a close-up
of Carmen keeps pulling back to reveal Carmen's hat with an endless stream of bananas flowing out and Carmen surrounded by
giant strawberries! Edward Everret Horton and Charlotte Greenwood are on hand to add to insanity. Then to top it off
Alice ends the film with "The Polka-Dot Polka" which brings to
mind Busby's "Shadow Waltz." In "Shadow Waltz" he used neon violins in this number he uses what look to be neon hoolahoops!
On any level the film is a prime example of a director who just
doesn't no where to stop. This isn't a classic Hollywood musical
but it is top notch Hollywood Camp!

I reluctantly agree with the early comments about the poor quality of the transfer. I own the laserdisk version of this film; it is an extraordinary record of 1940's Technicolor: bright and vibrant. The DVD is a pale comparison.

Amazingly, the DVD has a side by side comparison of a 1994 version of the film, and the current, "restored" version. This is where the "before" is miles better than the "after." It looks as though Fox considers getting rid of some specks here and there as representing a full restoration. At Warner, the efforts with Gone With The Wind, Singing in the Rain, Wizard of Oz, etc. have shown that it is possible to get a sharp, clear, colorful result that is arguably better than the original prints. Perhaps this film does not rate as much restorative an effort, but it would have been nice to see, at the very least, as nice a transfer as the earlier laser.

Busby Berkeley's The Gang's All Here (1943, 20th Century Fox) is a World War II, fun-filled Technicolor musical treat. Berkeley is best know for his spectacular song and dance numbers in the Warner Brothers' depression-era black & white musicals like Forty Second Street, Dames and Gold Diggers. In this film, he is at the top of his game as evident in the outrageous "The Lady In The Tutti Fruiti Hat" number with Carmen Miranda, scantilly clad chorus girls and gigantic bananas and strawberries. The movie opens on a quieter note with the beautiful song, "Brazil".
Other numbers worth mentioning are "Minnie's In The Money" featuring a vocal by Benny Goodman and a swinging jitter-bug routine. "Paducah" is a another lively tune with Benny Goodman, Carmen Miranda and Tony Demarco. Two beautiful ballads are provided by the talented Alice Faye: "A Journey To A Star" and "No Love No Nothing". The other big production number, "The Polka Dot Polka" with Alice Faye is a kaleidoscopic extravaganza with colorful neon tubes and beautiful chorus girls. The supporting players add to the movie's charm. In addition to Carmen Miranda's singing and comedic talents, Edward Everett Horton and Eugene Pallette provide additional comic moments, as does the likeable Charlotte Greenwood and her signature high-kicking dance routine. However, James Ellison's performance as the male lead, leaves something to be desired. Since the movie was made during the height of the war, Tyrone Power, John Payne or Don Ameche may not have been available. Look for brief appearances by Jeanne Crain at a pool party and June Haver as the hat check girl. Both would become stars at Fox soon after the release of this film. The Gang's All Here was originally released on DVD as part of the Alice Faye Collection (volume one). The cover artwork pictured here, at the time of this review, is the same as the previous DVD release. The new artwork for this release is different but amazon.com is still using the artwork for the original DVD release - this makes it confusing for buyers.

The plot is silly. Really, really silly and trite.

However, this pointless fluff was put into the hands of the one-of-a-kind Busby Berkeley. He added swarms of dancing show girls gracefully groaning under the weight of giant bananas and the always amazing Alice Faye singing as only she can.

The recurring theme of large fruit comes back again when Carmen Miranda dances with an enormously huge Tutti Fruitti Hat -- an image that has lived on for generations on stage, screen, cartoons and I Love Lucy episodes.

If you need a break from the tedium of reality, this is the DVD for you! You just gotta love it.

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has been turning out some first-rate discs lately, exemplified by last week's release of "The Mr. Moto Collection, Volume 2," the final release in the studio' Mr. Moto series. The Moto films, atmospheric tales of international intrigue starring Peter Lorre as a vaguely Asian adventurer, again look sharp, clear and solid in Fox's transfers.

But something has gone horribly wrong with "The Alice Faye Collection," a four-disc set of Fox musicals including one of the studio's crown jewels: "The Gang's All Here," Busby Berkeley's psychedelic Technicolor extravaganza of 1943. The original Technicolor separation negatives were destroyed in the 1980s at a time when Fox was trying to purge its library of nitrate film elements, and the movie was transferred to an Eastman Color internegative on safety stock. The Eastman material has since faded, producing dark, heavy tones. Fox's engineers have apparently made an attempt to brighten the colors digitally, only to have the pigments look flat and pale.

The results, as in the celebrated giant bananas number starring the unforgettable Carmen Miranda, are disappointing and even grotesque; those big bananas are a washed-out tan color rather than the original, eye-popping yellow.

The other films in the set - Irving Cummings's Technicolor "That Night in Rio" (1941); Mr. Cummings's black-and-white biopic "Lillian Russell" (1940); and Roy Del Ruth's adaptation of Irving Berlin's "On the Avenue" - look somewhat better, though "Avenue" shows serious print damage throughout.

But "The Gang's All Here" represents another great film lost, this time right under our noses. We, and the studio libraries, ought to know better by now.

This musical is surreal from start to finish..it has the most lurid colors you'll ever see in a musical. Alas, the DVD transfer is not good, keep those copies you made from the Fox Movie channel!

However, if you adjust the color on your set to high, and fool with the HUE button, and the Brightness button, you will have the return of the colorful magic of this wild and crazy film.

Miranda and Faye are drenched in pastels and sing songs that are beyond the realm of fantasy when the color is added..Also, Charlotte Greenwood, with those swinging long legs is on hand to dance by the pool with a young dancer and it's almost like a merrie melodie..so cartoonish, but they are people!

Busby Berkely was known for making humans do the inhuman, and he does it here all the time, and so you have an uncommon film of stars immersing themselves into this tutti frutti technicolor bath with wild abandon.

Also, notice that camera rock and roll, unintentionally I am sure, as it pans all over the place, sometimes with no point of view or even good focus. In the opening the camera cannot stay still..Berkely often took over the camera, and it seems that here there was squabbling going on between him and the cinematograher.

This is also Alice Faye's last film for Fox, until that camp State Fair of 1962 with Ann-Margaret. It is a hell of send off, but the confusion, the color, the shots that needed to be re shot and are not, make it allunique in all of cinema musical history.

Remember, keep your tapes, but work with the color, hue and brightness, and watch the film as it was made, IN COLOR times a million.

I've waited a long time for "The Gang's All Here" to emerge on DVD and it's soon going to be available. I can't describe how unintentionally wacky the film is. Carmen Miranda singing The Lady with the Tutti Frutti Hat just about says it, and she is wild in this number, with those suggestive huge bananas moving up and down. But just as entertaining is Alice Faye, my first "movie star," whose "A Journey to a Star" and "No Love, No Nothing" are delightful and moving. Buzz Berkeley must have been on something (?) when he put this frolic together, but, if so, it adds to the overblown gaiety of the whole thing. Not another film like it.

First, be aware that the reviews included may refer to either the 2007 or 2008 DVD releases. I have no complaints about the 2008 release. The colors are vibrant and images very clear. In addition to the feature film, Dr. Drew Casper hosts a commentary version in which he points out technical details of the production making and comments on some of the personnel. "We Still Are" is a brief nostalgic trip by an older Alice Faye, mostly of interest for a few highlight clips of some of her earlier films. I didn't think the Busby Berkeley documentary was worth a look. I've seen a much better one somewhere else.
Back to the point of my title, where's John Payne, Don Ameche, Cesar Romero and/or Betty Grable? We got used to the presence of at least a couple of these stars in the Fox musicals of the early '40s, along with Alice Faye and/or Carmen Miranda, who star in this film. Perhaps this oversight was intentional, as the leading man's role is less prominent than in previous Fox musicals of this period. There are simply too many other things going on involving various other familiar faces or chorus girls to give the romantic ups and downs and flip flops between the leading characters their usual importance. There is just enough romantic intrigue to provide interest without getting tedious, a problem with some of the other Fox musicals of this time. James Ellison, as soldier Andy Mason, makes a serviceable, if less charismatic, leading man than his predecessors. Near the end, he confronts Alice, his new love, and Sheila Ryan, his "other woman" together, a potentially explosive situation. Alice and James handle the situation well, but it looks like curtains for the Alice-James romance. Don't count on it! This is the second and last pairing of Alice and Carmen in a Fox musical. They basically play the same roles relative to each other in both films: Carmen as the exotic outrageously-dressed spitfire, Alice as the calm dreamy-eyed girl-next- door, who becomes the new girl in the leading man's life.
In the mid-WWII years, Fox included one of the big bands in some of their musicals. Glenn Miller got his chance in "Sun Valley Serenade" and "Orchestra Wives". In this film, Benny Goodman's band is periodically featured, with Benny sometimes doing the vocal. However, his band is not an integral part of the stroy, as was true of the Miller films. Benny doesn't know what to do with his eyes during his vocals, mostly looking down, like he is insecure. Miller's films were in B&W. I can only assume this was because they lacked Carmen. This is confirmed by the fact that "Tin Pan Alley", the only film featuring both Alice Faye and Betty Grable, but lacking Carmen, was also shot in B&W.
Can you imagine a musical prominently featuring Carmen Miranda, with Busby Berkeley the director was well as the choreographer? Well, this is it! The only one. A dream team for a lavish musical-comedy spectacle! Carmen appears in a seemingly endless variety of exotic costumes, both on and off stage. She even sports a fashionable-looking version of the asian peasant conical hat. Her patriotic red, white and blue street outfit includes a pair of blue mouse ears, thus predating the Mickey Mouse Club uniform. Reportedly, she designed her own costumes in her film roles, having been a hat and clothes designer for part of her teen years. Already a veteran performer in Brazil before Sonja Henje encouraged her to move to the US, she demanded that her band be used in her film numbers.
Busby staged a number of his signature lavish chorus girl scenes, with or without Carmen included. The choreography of giant banana-wielding chorus girls is perhaps the most remembered. The film finishes with an elaborate kaleidoscopic treatment of the chorus girls and the stars, and Busby's innovative take on the main actors and actresses taking their bows.
Veteran character actors Eugene(bullfrog) Pallete, Edward Horton and Charlotte Grreenwood add some light comedy as they appear from time to time as the parents of the leading man or his "other woman". Carmen also provides much of the comedy. Her romantic life seems limited to flirting with married middle-aged men, esp. Eugene and Eddie.
Overall, certainly among the most entertaining musical extravagancias ever produced, even without the rest of "the gang" or Glen Miller's band. Well paced, with a good mix of different styles of song and dance, comedy, drama and romance, with some references to the ongoing war. Certainly, a welcomed diversion for the men and women overseas as well as at home, not to mention us in the 21st century.