The Gang's All Here (1943 film)

The Gang's All Here
Theatrical release poster
Directed byBusby Berkeley
Screenplay byWalter Bullock
Story byNancy Wintner
George Root Jr.
Tom Bridges
Produced byWilliam LeBaron
William Goetz (executive producer)
StarringAlice Faye
Carmen Miranda
Phil Baker
Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman Orchestra
Eugene Pallette
Charlotte Greenwood
Edward Everett Horton
James Ellison
Sheila Ryan
Tony DeMarco
CinematographyEdward Cronjager
Edited byRay Curtiss
Music byLeo Robin
Harry Warren
Distributed by20th Century Fox
Release date
  • December 24, 1943 (1943-12-24)
Running time
103 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$2.5 million[1]

The Gang's All Here is a 1943 American Twentieth Century Fox Technicolor musical film starring Alice Faye, Carmen Miranda and James Ellison. The film, directed and choreographed by Busby Berkeley, is known for its use of musical numbers with fruit hats.[2] Included among the 10 highest-grossing films of that year, it was at that time Fox's most expensive production.[3]

Musical highlights include Carmen Miranda performing an insinuating, witty version of "You Discover You're in New York" that lampoons fads, fashions, and wartime shortages of the time. The film features Miranda's "The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat" which, because of its sexual innuendo (dozens of scantily clad women handling very large bananas), apparently prevented the film from being shown in Brazil on its initial release.[4][5] In the US, the censors dictated that the chorus girls must hold the bananas at the waist and not at the hip.[citation needed] Alice Faye sings "A Journey to a Star," "No Love, No Nothin'," and the surreal finale "The Polka-Dot Polka."

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color (James Basevi, Joseph C. Wright, Thomas Little).[6] It was the last musical Faye made as a Hollywood superstar. She was pregnant with her second daughter during filming.[7] In 2014, The Gang's All Here was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.[8][9]

  1. ^ Aubrey Solomon, Twentieth Century-Fox: A Corporate and Financial History Rowman & Littlefield, 2002 p 220
  2. ^ Brody, Richard (February 2, 2010). "The Gang's All Here". The New Yorker. Retrieved March 24, 2014.
  3. ^ Valle, Heloisa de Freitas; Camargos, Marcia (2002). "Yes, nós temos bananas: histórias e receitas com biomassa de banana verde". Heloisa de Freitas Valle & Marcia. ISBN 9788573593044. Retrieved September 11, 2014.
  4. ^ "The Gang's All Here". TVGuide.com. Retrieved 17 October 2016.
  5. ^ "Censored Films and Television". University of Virginia online. 2000. Archived from the original on 3 October 2011. Retrieved 17 October 2016.
  6. ^ The Gang's All Here (1943) Awards at IMDB
  7. ^ "IMDb.com: The Gang's All Here". IMDb.com. Retrieved 2008-12-16.
  8. ^ "Cinematic Treasures Named to National Film Registry". Library of Congress. 17 December 2014. Retrieved 17 October 2016.
  9. ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2020-10-02.