They used to rehearse for days to perfect numbers like this and then did fantastic editing., Today it's a few hours practice, film it, then we can fix it up in post production.
I always felt that the part when the girls/dancers retreat into the corner and are waving in the now-darkened massive studio is especially beautiful. Berkeley was a genius.
Watching this film - Golddiggers of 1935 - now. What a breathtaking scene. Brilliant Busby! Fun fact: the young female lead is Gloria Stuart - you know her as the old lady from Titanic!
Just like swans - The elegant gliding above, and the frantic activity of the men under the pianos. Astounding to have thought of it, combined with the amazing execution.
This number actually goes for 8.09 minutes. What's very impressive are the male dancers who are under the pianos, moving them around, on those stairs. Not a lot of room to move the pianos in a circle in what opens this clip. with the girls on the piano benches that are attached to the pianos on a black frame on the floor, there is no room for error. Like SO many Berkeley numbers... incredibly dangerous really. A remarkable number on so many levels.
This sounds JUST like my Grandmother's piano playing style. Growing up in the 30s, this was her time. She would play Glad Rag Doll and Rhapsody in Blue. Gosh it was great to listen to her.
Busby Berkely and his kaleidoscopic symmetry. Still wow-ing nearly 80 years later! A work that is "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Great stuff! Totally magical and stunning.
For the women who were far back in line, it must have been disappointing in a way, to be basically invisible....'yes I was in that movie, I'm 19th from the front, left side'
I wasn't born yet until 1947 so you have to be quite a senior from me because I'm in my early 70s now and my mother was only 9 when that movie was made
@John Ashtone You 2 misunderstood, I am not saying I myself was in the movie, but what one of the dancers may have said to someone at the time about being in the movie, notice the quote marks
The director would explain that this effect doesn't work or even exist without all the pianos and dancers wherever they are placed in the formation. Every participant is just as important as the others because it's about the totality, the sum of the parts. And if you told them it would still be viewed in the 2020s they'd be thrilled just to be included.
Some of the major studios of the '30s had specific genre departments. Busby Berkeley worked for several, but contributed to this and his other classics at Warner-First National in Burbank before moving to Fox, then MGM, then back to Fox where he figured in some of the Esther Williams films.
Un real . I’m thinking of the king of jazz from 1929 I think also had some incredible numbers . When you consider no special effects like today it’s really something.
Interesting to see if they could make anything like this today. Berkeley was a genius. Love to see something like this in color, wide screen and surround sound. Probably wouldn't be able to find enough young women willing to do this kind of thing!
Part of its charm and character is the fact it is in black-and-white, and filmed with the latest in technology from 1933. Please enjoy it exactly as it is, for what it is. Thank goodness art like this has been preserved on film.
Escaping in buckets here. David Greenhill on YT JUST OOZES THIS VERY FREQUENCY. Love it love it love it. Just what our world needs now ...love, love and more love. So very glad I searched for BUSBY on YT. K x
The craziest most surreal number in Hollywood History ! I just love it ! Dick Powell crooning the waltz number is also very good and the girls are so cute too !
Look closely and you'll see the legs of a man underneath and moving each piano. Latticework on each side of the piano allows for visual orientation , also.
It does look like it but actually it's just the video compression. I've seen the original and you can not really see feet there. Possibly they were there and the video artifates reveal it? Don't know.
Correct. They were the Busby Berkeley boys from Warners. To get those pianos ALL turning at the same speed in perfect alignment must have taken some rehearsing. Particularly as I doubt they could have seen where they were going or have seen the other pianos. Quite incredible.
These pianos are just lightweight stage props, possibly made of dense foam or balsa wood. In many shots you can see that they have no actions or strings, and the cavity where these components would be is just a flat surface with some humps fashioned to represent the cast iron frame. Further, there's no music desk-- just a rack attached to the back of a non-existent fallboard. At 2:30 in the clip, you can see a piano jump off the ground when hit by the piano on the right just as the two lines come back together. Those "pianos" must have weighed very little. That was a lot of work to create all of those, if indeed no camera trickery or special overlap effects were used to duplicate them in the scene.
Yes. They are prop pianos. I think everyone would know that. They're hollow so the male dancers' bodies can be inside the body of the pianos while their legs move them about. A massive undertaking, from both the dancers and also Warners' props department.
There was one man below each of these "pianos" bending over in a studio that was about 120 degrees. Busbie Berkeley was often known to take 25 + takes on these films. The men were known for just passing out one by one as the day went on from exhaustion.
Way cool! I pity the with pianos 'on their backs'- lol. Back when only the MOST talented people made it to the top. Now... well, Busby is probably spinning in his grave.
I'm not into musicals at all, but for some resaon YT keeps suggesting me to watch these clips, which are very impressive and technically amazing but, sorry, I can't help thinking every time "wow! they had to be really high on something to concieve these scenes!"
@@alantaylor6691 thank you, I actually wanted to change it, because it contains some gross language, but yt won't allow this, one has to create a new account
@@canalsoloparaverunvideodem8451 lol. If I start watching too many of these Busby Berkeley numbers I'll probably end up around the twist like you now are, right? To heck, I'm going for it.
While I do appreciate movies made from every decade, it's sad to say that Hollywood had Soooo much money, during the Depression years and spent lavish amounts of money on their productions, while people from this country, called America, were starving, or trying to make ends meet! How many people in Hollywood, answered the call?! Just My Opinion... I do love these movies, but behind the scenes, is something else!
