His father died in 1978, while Berkeley died in 1976. His father was born in 1892 Berkeley was born in 1895. “My father and Busby Berkeley lived strangely parallel lives,” Major said during a recent interview with IndieWire. Major didn’t just read about these stories - he grew up on them. Rita Hayworth’s father was the dancing instructor at his father’s acting school when Berkeley was staging musical numbers for Samuel Goldwyn before heading to Warner Bros. Major’s Hollywood roots start with his father, drama coach Robert Wade Major, a contemporary and colleague of Berkeley’s, who in the late ’20s taught actors how to speak for the talkies. But it was a long and arduous quest that required obsessive detective work and a deeply held love for the subject. Los Angeles-based Lake/Major Productions, headed by the husband-and-wife team of historian, author, critic, and filmmaker Wade Major (“Schlock: The Secret History of American Movies”) and producer Kristi Lake (2020 Oscar-shortlisted live-action short film “Refugee”) have acquired worldwide stage and screen rights to Berkeley’s unpublished memoirs, entitled “Girls, Glamour and Glory,” along with rights to “The Busby Berkeley Book,” which Berkeley co-authored with Jim Terry and film historian Tony Thomas. Rarely has such artistic obsessiveness been made so damn irresistible.Director Kitty Green Was Shocked by How Americans Reacted to Her ‘The Royal Hotel’Īfter decades of development hell, as numerous filmmakers tried to bring Berkeley’s colorful story to the screen - pre-“Rocky,” producers Chartoff and Winkler wanted to make a biopic, songwriters Alan Menken and David Zippel (“Hercules”) were interested in a stage production, and more recently, “La La Land” producer Marc Platt and star Ryan Gosling tried to set it up at Warner Bros. “Just as Cagney is able to infuse the whole film with pedal-to-the-metal energy through sheer charisma, so is Berkeley able to momentarily silence criticisms-of political incorrectness (this is pre-Code 1930s, after all), of racial insensitivity, of sexism-through his taste for astonishing visual extravagance and exhilarating “can-you-top-this” chutzpah. “Three of Berkeley’s best numbers back-to-back!” “Irresistibly wonderful example of Busby Berkeley’s pinwheel choreography.” 35mm print preserved by Library of Congress. (1933, Lloyd Bacon) Busbyberkeleython: Jimmy Cagney’s high-steppin’ search through the opium dens for “Shanghai Lil” Ruby Keeler, aquatic ballet “By a Waterfall,” and a stop at the hot and horny Honeymoon Hotel. All the Berkeley sequences demonstrate this unique auteur’s astonishing powers to transform straightforward performative set-ups into abstract micro-worlds of consistently evolving experimental art, shooting and virtually editing in one camera with almost Hitchcockian foresight and precision.” “Once the numbers get going, nothing else matters!” “The movie thrives and survives on Berkeley’s genius for all his spectacular theatrical flair, he’s a sociobiologist in rhythm.” It sums up what is meant by the phrase “pure thirties.” “A funny, good-natured backstage musical, and a Depression period piece as well. The Pre-Code Busby Berkeley musical, with some of his most eye-popping numbers ever. (1933, Mervyn LeRoy) Coin-clad Ginger Rogers warbles “We’re In The Money,” Ruby Keeler falls for tunesmith Dick Powell, and Joan Blondell fends off lecherous Warren William.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |