What did Busby Berkeley choreography?
Berkeley’s popularity with an entertainment-hungry Depression audience was secured when he choreographed five musicals back-to-back for Warner Bros.: 42nd Street, Footlight Parade, the aforementioned Gold Diggers of 1933, Dames, and Fashions of 1934, as well as In Caliente and Wonder Bar with Dolores del Río.
What was Busby Berkeley style?
Busby Berkeley is one of the few directors whose name is synonymous with, and instantly evocative of, a style—namely, musical production numbers featuring undulating masses of geometrically arrayed dancers, photographed from angles that turn their physiques into abstractions.
What innovation did Busby Berkeley contribute to filmmaking?
Although the musical numbers in those films and in those that would follow were often ostensibly part of a performance, Berkeley defied the stage-bound conventions of movie musicals and used camera angles and movements that would be impossible to experience as a spectator sitting in the audience.
Where to start with Busby Berkeley?
But the best place to begin is probably 42nd Street (1933), which single-handedly modernised the sound musical, all but inventing the puttin’-on-a-show backstage drama with all its attendant clichés: warring chorus girls, frantic directors, innocent ingenues filmed in adoring soft focus.
What is the Berkeley Top Shot?
kaleidoscope
Berkeley’s legendary top shot technique (the kaleidoscope again, this time shot from overhead) appeared seminally in the Cantor films, and also the 1932 Universal programmer Night World.
Did Ginger Rogers sing in her movies?
Ginger Rogers (born Virginia Katherine McMath; July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) was an American actress, dancer, and singer during the Golden Age of Hollywood. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her starring role in Kitty Foyle (1940), and performed during the 1930s in RKO’s musical films with Fred Astaire.
Why were musicals popular during the Great Depression?
The emergence of the movie musical in the 1930’s was important in two respects—it created a whole new genre of film, while giving the suffering citizenry a way to escape their troubles, whether it be singing about animal crackers with Shirley Temple or following the Yellow Brick Road with Dorothy.
Who was Fred Astaire’s wife?
Robyn Smithm. 1980–1987
Phyllis Potterm. 1933–1954
Fred Astaire/Wife
In 1980, Fred Astaire, who had been a widower since 1954 and who had just turned 81, married Robyn Smith, who was 35 and one of the first and most successful woman jockeys in the country. “We were married on June 24, 1980,” Robyn Astaire said the other day, “and by a sad coincidence we buried him on June 24, 1987.
How many films did Fred and Ginger make together?
10 movies
That 1934 letter from Astaire to his agent begins to make sense. Luckily, RKO Studios persuaded Fred to change his mind about dancing again with Ginger. They went on to make 10 movies together, all with magical dance routines that have made their dancing partnership the most-watched in history.
What music was popular during the Great Depression?
According to many who lived through the Depression, you can’t be sad and dance at the same time. Music and dancing made people forget the hardships of daily life. Jazz and swing were popular. People danced to the big band tunes of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Tommy Dorsey.
What happened to Fred Astaire’s first wife?
Astaire’s first wife, New York socialite Phyllis Baker Potter, died of cancer in 1954 after 21 years of marriage and two children – Fred Jr., born in 1936, and Ava, born in 1942. The family also included Peter Hoffer, Mrs. Astaire’s son from a previous marriage.
What was Busby Berkeley’s style of dance?
One of the defining aspects of Berkeley’s style of dance is hundreds of gorgeous women dancing in scantily clad outfits that exposed their legs, midriffs, and the oh so scandalous belly button. Berkeley used his unique approach to capturing large dance numbers with a camera that moved as much as the chorus.
Where did Busby Berkeley get his name from?
Berkeley Williams Enos was born into a theatrical family in Los Angeles, California in the fall of 1895. He would go on to take Hollywood by storm under the flashier name “Busby Berkeley,” cementing himself as one of the greatest musical choreographers ever to grace the silver screen.
What do you think of the movie Busby Berkeley?
Mention Busby Berkeley and your mind will rightfully conjure images of infinitely parading blondes morphing in unison into glitzy mandalas as the camera swoops overhead, underwater, and under hoop-skirts.
What did Busby Berkeley do in Footlight Parade?
Likewise, in Footlight Parade and Gold Diggers of 1933, Berkeley sold the fantasy: he finessed the art of synchronizing the filmed image with a pre-recorded track; he interspersed vivid vignettes with gargantuan ensemble pieces; he found a visual language that coated the frame in gloss, garters, and glitter.