And if there was anything that was sure to have raised a smile even during the height of the Great Depression, it was indubitably the Busby Berkeley musical. Sequences of which - to this day beckon one to gambol in its splendors. Before Berkeley's reign as the premier choreographer of the first half of the twentieth century, he would shimmy his way through the New York theater circuit, soon realizing that Broadway musicals were his true calling. And Berkeley was certainly no neophyte of the theatre world given he was the son of stage actress Gertrude Berkeley and his father just happened to be a successful impresario. The production that carved out the choreographer's career would be the lavish Rogers and Hart musical A Connecticut Yankee in 1927.
And Berkeley's ambition didn't end there, nosiree, this dancing deity would soft-shoe his way on up the director's chair via The Shubert Theatre and wow them six ways to Sunday and matinees too with his high-octane 1929 musical The Street Singer; a production that was music to the ears of Samuel Goldwyn who later enlisted Berkeley to choreograph Eddie Cantor's dance steps in the Cantor vehicle/ Ziegfeld production Whoopee in 1930.
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| Roses by any other name - from Dames (1934) |
The Berkeley signature is unarguably one of the most recognizable of the form, his compositional techniques - shallow focus and high key - in concert with geometrically situated dancers would create a seemingly illusory effect as if to be the cheekier cast of characters of a Van Beuren cartoon as directed by MC Escher.
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| From 1933's Footlight Parade |
Even in lesser known pre-code era efforts, the Berkeley magic was never on hiatus, a prime example of this can be seen in 1932's Night World that starred Boris Karloff in the most unusual role of his career as just a real swell fellar. And in Berkeley's supernal sequence one would be hard pressed to find a more enmeshing number than Who's Your Little Who-Zis. Its moving mandala may have been but a mere microcosm in contrast to the avenue he would be taking you to on 42nd Street, but there was still no refuting that Berkeley touch.
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| Some of the earlier wardrobe malfunctions. |
Busby's personal life was quite a number as well; the choreographer was nearly sentenced to prison for vehicular manslaughter in 1935 after a major collision and had six failed marriages under his belt, but nothing would ever stop his show from going on , and on it went until March 14,1976. Berkeley passed away peacefully in his sleep, he was eighty years old.