08.20.05
The Gang's All Here (1943)

Go see The Gang's All Here! It is currently playing in a rare, struck-from-the-nitrate negative print at Film Forum. I'd seen it a bunch of times as a teenager when AMC ran it, and I remember  that "the plot would probably cause brain damage..." but that doesn't really adequately prepare one for the retina-burning Technicolor, Busby Berkeley's choreography at its most hallucinogenic, numerous topical "jokes" about World War II rationing, Benny Goodman looking really stoned and trying to sing, and a romantic "plot" that resolves itself by one character abruptly announcing that "I never really loved him all along!" Add to that seeing it for the first time on the big screen, with an audience packed full of off-duty drag queens (who knew all the words to all of the songs, not to mention every one of Carmen Miranda's dance moves)!

Actually, I imagine it might be more overwhelming than delightful.

Carmen Miranda in The Gang's All Here
©1943 20th Century Fox