You’ll recognize this tune from Singin’ In The Rain. It’s from Broadway Melody (1929), featured here a while ago. You’d almost think this was choreographed by Busby Berkeley. It wasn’t, but it certainly points in that direction.
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Sturges pushed a lot of buttons and envelopes in a brief period of time. I think things were, by necessity, loosened up on the home front during WW2, and the Hays (correct spelling) Office went along with that. Life took on an undeniable urgency and immediacy, and being reserved about sex was a relatively pointless stance. Bob Clampett took advantage of that, and the Warner Bros. cartoons were certainly never wilder than during the war years.
Funny, I don’t remember that tune from “Singin’ in the Rain,” but I DO remember that it has always creeped me out! You know what, I have ALWAYS wanted to write about a book about the chorus girls and starlets who all had their one or two seconds of fame on the screen, what became of them after, and how it affected their spouse(s) and kids, as it would be not unlike our own childhood of having a mother who was “almost famous.”
Recommendations! Just bought a used copy of “The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek,” which I’ve always wanted to see. It somehow managed to portray Betty Hutton as having had, well, a “good time” with a bunch of departing army men one night and having no recall, but ending up “married.” She ends up having SEXTUPLETS! Naturally, this concept would have been impossible in the 1940s, if not for the Dionne Quints having been born in the 30s. It’s fascinating to watch how Preston Sturges got by the Hayes Office with all the innuendo. The girl who plays Betty’s younger sister is barely 14 in the picture and is amazing!