Ruby Keeler was never my favorite 1930s dance star. In fact, I can think of few other dancers who are less nimble on their feet, or less charismatic. But for some reason, audiences just took to her. She had a kind of calf-eyed sweetness. Plus she was married to Al Jolson, which had to count for something. I once read (in that vast repository of knowledge we call "somewhere") that the reason Keeler couldn't tap dance is that she wasn't a tap dancer. She was a buck dancer, as in "buck and wing", a style that has some things in common with clog dancing. I've seen aboriginal buck dancing competitions, and have noticed that buck shades into jigging, as in the traditional Metis Red River jig. Is that what she was doing? Maybe Ruby was just misunderstood.
I don't know if this is a Busby Berkeley number or not - I'll have to look it up - but the hokiness, the use of objects on a giant scale seems to suggest it. It appealed to me because I "read somewhere" that typewriters are coming back. It seemed like an absurd idea at first, but then I thought about it. There is one huge advantage: they simply can't be hacked. The documents they produce can be destroyed - I mean, really, truly and forever - reduced to a pile of ashes in seconds. Remember that "eat the note!" thing that spies used to do? If the hacking problem continues to grow at its present rate, by the year 2050 we'll all be using Olivetti portables with reversible ribbons. Not Selectrics, not that one with the ball that flies around - those are just too advanced, and some electric typewriters even have basic computers in them. No. We'll have to use manuals, and pound the hell out of the keys again, rip out/crumple up the sheets of paper and throw them across the room into the wastebasket. As a matter of fact, I think the stress levels in contemporary society are entirely due to the extinction of this ritual. That, and a lot of other things.
Come out, come out, come out and get your lovin' Now don't you keep me in suspense Come on, come on, we'll do our turtledovin' Sittin' on a backyard fence Come on, come on, The little stars are peekin' They're waiting for you to commence Uh-huh, uh-huh, I kind of thought I'd weaken Sittin' on a backyard fence
It may be just another little backyard alley Off the avenue But I can see a willow tree, a moonlit valley In the dreams I share with you Meow, meow, the kitty cat is cooin' He shows a lot of common sense He knows, he knows, there's always something doin' Sittin' on a backyard fence!
This is only one of my favorite numbers from Footlight Parade, a classic Busby Berkeley musical from 1933. Pre-code, obviously, though this number is extremely mild compared to the hilariously charming Honeymoon Hotel, in which almost every line is full of double-entendres. But the tune is so lighthearted and the players so delightfully comedic that they get away with it. I can't find a whole version of HH, so can't post it here, and lyrics alone don't begin to get it. This little cat number, much simpler than the other three Berkeley blockbusters in this film, is a sort of warmup for the orgasmic bliss of the movie's last half-hour. And believe me, it IS orgasmic, even though I've had a few revelations about Berkeley lately that have opened my eyes.
I've seen his choreography, of course - anyone who likes old movies has, and my impression of it was always "classy kitsch". But then I couldn't help but notice the grace and precision of his dancers as they played phony violins or pianos in exact unison, or performed water ballet so perfectly synchronized it was a little bit frightening.
It IS a little bit frightening to see all this intentional, mass uniformity, and it fascinated me to find out a bit about Berkeley's background. He wasn't a dancer or a choreographer at all, wasn't even in show business. He was a drill sergeant in the army during World War I, an expert at forming precise military patterns with human bodies. This was some sort of mad genius drill sergeant, of course, and some of his visions are much darker than I realized.
I've just sent away to Amazon for a boxed set with some of his best-known stuff in it, but the one I'm looking forward to the most is Gold Diggers of 1935. His version of Lullaby of Broadway is so spooky that it's hard to see it as part of a musical at all. It's almost like a horror movie, with the singer's face starting as a tiny white dot in the middle of total blackness. Then like some toxic death-lily it gradually blooms and blooms until it dominates the screen in a way that is nothing short of macabre.
The dancing in this number is not like normal dancing, believe me. This isn't tap. I don't know what it is, but it includes aggressive arm-thrusting movements that at first look weird, then violent, then - like something out of the Third Reich. I am not exaggerating.
Hitler was well on his way by 1935, as was Leni Riefenstahl, chronichler of Hitler's rise in the infamous propoganda film, Triumph of the Will. But I was astonished to learn that, fascist as his choreography looked, it was not Berkeley who was influenced by Riefenstahl.
It was the other way around. Riefenstahl idolized American film, and American musicals in particular. She could not have failed to be dazzled by a choreographer who could get a couple hundred identical human beings to move around a stage in exact unison.
Berkeley didn't have a happy life. He married and divorced six times, killed three people in a drunken car accident, and at least once tried to commit suicide. For all that, he lived to be 80 years old. Such longevity is not always a great blessing in a person like that.
But he left these weird artifacts with their disturbing overtones. This little backyard fence number is nothing - except for a dwarf running around in a bizarre rat costume, and the inexplicably weird "thing" that Ruby Keeler rises out of and dances around, a leering, winking, open-mouthed something that might be the moon, or something else.
Flowers in her arms, stars in her eyes! Caitlin triumphs once again at her year-end dance recital, but with a difference. She really worked hard this year and had some private coaching from the owner of the dance company, an eccentric English lady in her 60s who still dances up a storm. Caitlin displayed a dramatic leap in skills and focus. It all came together for her. Tap is especially difficult to master, but she blew us away this time with her precision and exuberance. This was a good old-fashioned 1930s-style number a la Busby Berkeley, my favorite kind of tap.
Her other number was a hilarious thing from Legally Blonde called Omigod You Guys!. The thing is, you guys, my kids were (and are) incredible athletes, smart, funny, caring people, everything you could ever ask for. But they weren't into the arts. At all. This next generation overflows with creativity in dance and music, and Caitlin has her own YouTube craft/cooking show. Caitlin also aced her clarinet solo, Over the Rainbow, at her band recital, and Erica's choir has been invited to sing at various cultural events. What can I say? Sometimes you just have to wait it out.
Me-OW! Me-ow, me-OW! Chow-chow-chow, meow-meow-meow-meow, and all that stuff. Well, at least it's not a dog parade. There's something about a bunch of wiggly chorus girls from the '30s pretending to be kitties in fur costumes. It's just. . . surreal. Ruby Keeler in particular is a strange one: not pretty (at all), not charismatic, an atrocious actress and singer, and only a so-so dancer. Must've banged the boss or something.
I watched most of this movie (Footlight Parade) while in a glazed state (just plain tired). It sort of slunk by me in a surreal haze, and I kept on watching it cuz it had James Cagney in it and I've always found him interesting, if a bit frightening. Now HE had all the things Keeler lacked, and was a fair dancer in an odd, stiff-legged way when he played George M. Cohan. He was even prettier than she was, with those heavy-lidded, bedroomy eyes that promised a good slapping around. Then again, pickled herring would be prettier than she was.
This movie was astonishing in that it had multiple Busby Berkeley numbers staged in such venues as giant swimming pools, a Shanghai brothel and an entire hotel full of couples trying to conceive babies. These numbers were all performed live at movie theatres - in fact, the whole entourage had to rush from one theatre to another - to warm up the audience as an opening act for the film.
That meant they had to pack up 57 floors of a hotel in the back of a truck, drag an Olympic-size pool with water in it around with them and scrape together a brothel as they zazzed from movie theatre to movie theatre, maybe collaring a couple of extra chippies along the way. Nobody asked how they fit all that stuff on a stage that wasn't even that big cuz it wasn't meant for live shows. Not THIS kind of live show anyway. All that water would've warped the floor boards.
This whole thing was coy and jiggly and obviously pre-Code with its references to prostitution, extramarital sex and various kinds of hoochy-koochy. The costumes were brief and filmy and nipples figured large. Within a year the iron gates would have clanged shut on all that bloody sex nonsense. Tarzan still wore his loincloth, but Jane was clad in something like a gym suit and kept referring to T. as her "husband". (So who married them - Cheetah?).
I've made a bit of a study of the Tarzan films - oh God, stop me please, it's late. I'm surprised the second one (Tarzan and his Mate) was even released, as it had a highly erotic nude swimming scene that's well worth seeing. Jane seems to be living in a kind of sexual reverie with her big ol' ape. But in the third one, the gym suit one, there is a scene in which the filmmakers somehow got around all the rules.
Jane is (supposedly) about to go back to England to sort out her inheritance, so is saying goodbye to Tarzan (reassuring him that she will be back "when the moon makes safari three times"). She's sitting on the ground and he suddenly looms up in front of her. Weismuller couldn't act his way out of a paper bag full of bananas, but physical presence he had, and a sinuous leopardlike jungle tread that was compelling and even a bit disturbing to watch.
Anyway, he gives her what looks like a gardenia. Then she begins to lie back with a look on her face that's complex - it's almost fear, but also anticipation and awe - and a big shadow falls over her and then the camera pans to the river beside her. As her hand slowly opens the gardenia drops into the water and rushes away.
Well, any ninny with 3/4 of a brain knew that they made love, and any ninny with 3/4 of a brain would wonder what that would be like with a big ol' ape man who is basically an animal. In other words, the scene was much more erotically charged than all the jiggles n' giggles of pre-Code fluff.
But what WOULD it be like with Tarzan? Did Jane school him in the ways of erotic delight, or did he just. . . .I'm going to bed now. Jeez.
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