Let's be realistic.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I'll get to the plot of Busby Berkeley's "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 from 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 fiancée--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 Palette 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.

Yes, it's utterly absurd, and arguably stupid, but this made me laugh out loud a number of times, smile a lot of others,, and left my mouth hanging open with 'how did he do that'? camera moves, and 'did he just do that?!?' visual moments. Berkley adds color to his extravaganza dance numbers wonderfully, and even the tiny plot is handled with more fun than most of his earlier films. Carmen Miranda is terrific, as is Edward Horton, and the musical numbers are so over-the-top, and borderline obscene at times and flat out surreal at others that they're worth any moment of creaky dialogue. And for me, there were a lot fewer of those creaky moments than in Berkley's films from the 30s.

Several summers ago, I was at a summer trailer camp. They staged an amateur night at the camp and boy was it "campy"! A few DQs had been invited to participate. They staged the TuttiFrutti number from this movie. Complete with plastic fruits in big fluffy hats a la La Divina Miranda! And lip-synching to the soundtrack song. Their piece-de-resistance were 2 big inflatable Chiquita bananas!!! (They also lip-synched the number "Mamae Eu Quero" (sp.?) from "Down Argentine Way" (I think). (Question: Didn't Lucy lip-synch this on an "I Love Lucy" episode???) Anyway, I had never seen this movie (TGAH) at that point, but after their hilarious routine, someone told it was from an old Fox musical, but couldn't remember the film's title!! So one night's bout of insomnia cured that, as I caught TGAH on TV, and there was Miranda and her dancing bananas!!! Fantastic!! The rest of the film is forgettable really. So just get it for the TuttiFrutti!!! It's a classic.The ending of the film is hilariously inane. But that's the Berkeley way. Busby really missed his chance though. For the last dance sequence with the chorines and their fluorescent light-up rings, the big plastic bananas should have made a re-appearance, this time wielded by some big beefy marines in their swimwear. Then the rings and bananas could have all come together for a big Freudian finale with Carmen strutting her stuff as the Earth Mother once again.

I go regularly to the Hayden Orpheum theater in Cremorne, Sydney. The theater has a live jazz session lasting about 90 minutes, then intermission and a movie linked by theme or genre to the live music. On Sunday last, the music was a tribute to Benny Goodman followed by the movie, The Gang's All Here. I loved the movie mainly because of Harry Warren's usual outstanding songs, seeing Benny Goodman live, Carmen Miranda, and Busby Berkeley's choreography.The scene I most enjoyed was the opening one with that brilliant song "Brazil" which is rarely a vocal. To hear it sung in semi-classical style, in Portuguese, and then switch to the swinging, ebullient style of Carmen Miranda at dockside in New York was a great pleasure.