Product Description-Eadie Allen (Alice Faye) is a chorus girl who dreams of becoming a star. While working at a New York nightclub, she meets Sergeant Andy Mason (James Ellison); they fall in love but he is shipped off to war. As Eadie becomes the headliner at the nightclub, Andy comes home a war hero. But complications arise when Eadie finds out Andy is unofficially engaged to another woman. It's up to Eadie's friend and nightclub co-star Dorita (Carmen Miranda) to set things straight. The Gang's All Here is filled with leggy chorus dancers and lavish musical production numbers including Faye's flashy neon finale "The Polka Dot Polka."

Alice Faye, Carmen Miranda, Phil Baker © 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

Larry Edwards loved movies so much that in the early 70s, he took time away from his law office to buy and manage Chicago's legendary Biograph Theater.

It was here that I was afforded my first taste of 35mm prints of classic films projected in dye-transfer Technicolor and their original aspect ratios. This was just before the Technicolor Corporation halted its cost prohibitive dye-transfer process, selling its equipment to (Technicolor) Red China. In his infinite wisdom, Mr. Edwards convinced the powers that be at MGM to strike new dye transfer prints of their classic musical library.

The only non-Metro musical of the bunch was Busby Berkeley's Technicolor orgasm, The Gang's All Here. Years earlier, Johnny Carson screened a clip from the delirious The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat number and had a field day pointing out the logistical impossibilities of staging a gargantuan number such as this before a live audience. Even on my small black and white Zenith I was mesmerized.

James Ellison © 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

At this point in his career, Berkeley knew exactly what audiences wanted: a paucity of plot and an abundance of dazzle. The film opens in mid-production number and for 103 minutes makes very few attempts to form a cohesive narrative. What little story there is involves both putting on reviews to entertain service men  and a pampered Sergeant (James Ellison) who falls for a chorus girl (Alice Faye) while on a New York furlough.

James Ellison & Alice Faye © 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

Before going any further, let it be noted that on his best day Busby Berkeley was no match for Metro heavyweights Vincente Minnelli or Stanley Donen. First with Samuel Goldwyn (Whoopee!, The Kid from Spain) and later at Warner Bros. (Gold Diggers of 1933, Footlight Parade), Berkeley established a name throughout the early 30s with  the outlandish musical creations that he staged. The perfect genre to help herald the sound craze, by decade's end the Hollywood musical (and Berkeley's career) hit a slump.

He tried his hand at straight drama, but the public wasn't buying. After leaving Warners, and a brief stay at Metro, Berkeley landed at 20th Century Fox where he made The Gang's All Here. Although four others followed, this would be his last significant musical. He had a hand (unaccredited) in only one of MGM's Golden Age extravaganzas, Annie Get Your Gun.

Charlotte Greenwood & Carmen Miranda © 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

Next to Carmen Miranda, the thing people remember most about The Gang's All Here is its garish use of color. When projected, the Technicolor hues were so rich and oversaturated one would swear that if they ran their hand across the screen the dye would smear. 20th Century Fox's woeful DVD pressing is a smear of another color.

Never one to check out a restoration demo, after reading Dave Kehr's review in the New York Times, it was the first thing I consulted when the DVD arrived. Are the Fox "preservationists" dyslexic? Either the images should be reversed or the 1994 transfer master is infinitely superior to what they're now hawking. The same can be said for the clips inserted in a Berkeley featurette included on the disc.

According to Mr. Kehr, in attempt to rid their vaults of spontaneously combustible nitrate film materials, Fox  torched the original separation negatives in the 1980s.  Much of the painstaking creative work that went into the film's design is lost in this dismal transfer.

It's not unwatchable by any means, particularly if you've never seen it on the big screen. The image is crisp and there are no lines or scratches, but isn't that to be expected  from any new DVD transfer? Turn up your chroma and fiddle with the hue and you might come close to approximating the film's original look. BUT, given the studio pedigree, the quality is more akin to a $1.99 public domain pressing of Till the Clouds Roll By. See what happens when you give the colorist final cut?

The Gang's All Here is part of 20th Century Fox's Alice Faye Collection. Alice Faye, the acclaimed singer- actress of the 1930s and 1940s, starred in more than 30 feature  films. Admired by renowned composers such as Irving Berlin, George  Gershwin, Harry Warren and Cole Porter, Faye was a highly regarded  songstress as well as a legendary actress and performer. Four of   Faye's most celebrated musical classics that debut for the first time ever  as part of this collection   on DVD also include;   Lillian Russell, in which  Faye portrays the real-life musical star; On The Avenue, a satire  about a Broadway show and New York high society, and That Night In   Rio, a musical-comedy in which a wife, portrayed by Faye, is asked  to further an impersonation scheme.  Available together for the first  time on DVD, the box set offers revealing bonus materials, such as  audio commentaries, photo galleries, original theatrical trailers and  
more.

Special Features

—¸ Commentary by film professor Drew Casper - who offers an in-depth analyzes of the scenes, actors, about Benny Goodman's band, and other aspects of the film.

—¸ Featurette: Busby Berkeley: A Journey With a Star - Rick M. Hefner, Professor of American Film, USC talks about Busby Berkeley and how unique he is with his surrealistic vision. "He was born to make visions on film," said Hefner who discusses many of the shots in the film, and political aspects of the film.  

—¸ We Still Are! Alice Faye's last film - Pfizer executive Paul Ritz talks about this movie that Pfizer produced and that Alice Faye at one time went out with the film to pitch. It's mostly a health film ensconces between clips of Faye's films.

Alice Faye © 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

—¸ Excerpts from The Phil Harris - Alice Faye Show

—¸ Deleted scene: The $64 Question

—¸ Still Gallery

—¸ Restoration comparison

—¸ Theatrical trailer

Director: Busby Berkeley

Writers:   Walter Bullock, based on a story by Nancy Winnter, George Root, Jr. and Tom Bridges

Cast: Alice Faye, Carmen Miranda, Phil Baker, Eugene Palette, Charlotte Greenwood, Edward Everett Horton, Tony De Marco, James Ellison,  and Benny Goodman and his Orchestra

Run Time: 103 min.

Format: Color

Rating: G

Classic Movie Guide Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

DVD Release date: 2/20/2007