Busby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley, born William Berkeley Enos, was a pioneering American musical director and choreographer known for revolutionizing the Hollywood musical during the 1930s. His theatrical journey began at a young age, debuting on Broadway at just five years old. After serving in World War I and developing large-scale parade drills for troops, he returned to Broadway and quickly gained recognition for his innovative staging of musical numbers. Berkeley's transition to Hollywood was marked by his work with Samuel Goldwyn, where he embraced cinematic techniques to enhance dance performances, notably using a camera mounted on a monorail for aerial views of choreography.
His tenure at Warner Bros. produced iconic musicals such as "Forty-second Street" (1933) and "Gold Diggers of 1933" (1933), which featured elaborate dance sequences that combined intricate choreography with bold visuals. Berkeley's style often included lengthy, extravagant routines with a hint of sensuality, which captivated audiences and served as a form of escapism during the Great Depression. While his prominence declined in the mid-1940s as musicals evolved, he continued to influence the genre with notable works, including water-ballet films starring Esther Williams. Berkeley's legacy endures as a hallmark of American musical cinema, remembered for his ability to craft joy and spectacle in challenging times.
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Busby Berkeley
- Born: November 29, 1895
- Birthplace: Los Angeles, California
- Died: March 14, 1976
- Place of death: Palm Springs, California
Berkeley’s style of directing and choreography became so well known that the term “busby berkeley” was coined and appears in the American Thesaurus of Slang to describe an elaborate dance number. His overhead camera shots, forming dancers into kaleidoscopic patterns, and dazzling dance sequences, featuring scantily clad women, are characteristics of his musical film productions.
Born William Berkeley Enos, Busby Berkeley was the son of show people. He made his stage debut in New York at the age of five and, as an adult, appeared in musicals and began staging musical numbers. However, Broadway was not the sole influence on his development as an artist. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, he enlisted. While stationed in Europe, he created large-scale parade drills for troops and later served as an aerial observer with the Air Corps. After the war, he returned to Broadway, and his first job as a dance director was in the musical Holka Polka in 1925. Subsequently, he staged numbers for more than twenty shows, building a reputation as an innovator in the genre of musical comedy. His work caught the attention of Samuel Goldwyn who invited him to Hollywood in 1930. During the 1930’s, Berkeley’s body of work as a dance director changed the look of the Hollywood musical.
Berkeley’s first film for Goldwyn was Whoopee (1930), starring Eddie Cantor. Quick to see the advantages of using a camera, Berkeley designed dance numbers that were different from those for the theater. He invented a camera mounted on a monorail; consequently, the camera could be suspended above the dances, providing an “aerial” viewpoint of the dancers. Also drawing from his military experience, he emphasized the dancers as a troupe, rather than as isolated individuals.
In 1933, Berkeley was hired by Warner Bros., which offered a big budget for his increasingly large and spectacular routines. At Warner Bros. he created the films that made him famous. His first big musical was Forty-second Street (1933), starring Ruby Keeler. A box-office hit, it rescued the studio from bankruptcy and revived the film musical format. Intricate dance numbers included “Shuffle Off to Buffalo” and “Forty-second Street,” with the dancers manipulating banners and flags in such a way as to create a kaleidoscope of movement.
The opening number of Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) featured dancers wearing strategically placed coins; later in the show Berkeley used sixty female dancers, holding neon-lighted violins. In the “By a Waterfall” scene in Footlight Parade (1933) Berkeley developed geometric shapes, formed by women’s legs, spread wide, displayed on a fountain. As Berkeley’s routines became larger and more elaborate, the way he positioned the dancers became more sexually explicit. Dance numbers were also lengthy, many running more than ten minutes.
When Warner Bros. lost interest in producing big musicals, Berkeley went to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). There he directed three Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland films: Babes in Arms (1939), Strike Up the Band (1940), and Babes on Broadway (1941). By the mid-1940’s, Berkeley-style musicals were beginning to be replaced by musicals in which the songs and dances did not stand outside the plot but were integrated into the action. His two water-ballet films, Million Dollar Mermaid (1952) and Easy to Love (1953), both starring Esther Williams, included outstanding examples of his style, but the days of the Hollywood musicals were waning. Berkeley retired in 1954, but in 1962, he created numbers for the circus film Jumbo. Renewed interest in Berkeley’s dance extravaganzas led to the Broadway revival of 1925’s No, No, Nanette in 1971, with Berkeley supervising the production.
Impact
As Berkeley once stated, his aim during an era of breadlines, Depression, and war, was to make people happy. This he did through creating spectacles: over-the-top dance numbers that were often the most significant parts of the films. With innovative camera angles, over-large props, dancers in risqué costumes, and extended dance routines, Berkeley’s style was stamped on the film musicals of the 1930’s. During the decade, the energetic and creative Berkeley directed fourteen pictures, most of them musicals, and choreographed the musical numbers for twenty-one more. Berkeley provided entertainment during a time when a grim economic reality made his escapist visions a temporary relief for filmgoers.
Bibliography
Rubin, Martin. Showstoppers: Busby Berkeley and the Tradition of Spectacle. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
Siegel, Marcia B. “Busby Berkeley and the Projected Stage.” Hudson Review 62, no. 1 (2009): 106-112.
Thomas, Tony, and Jim Terry. The Busby Berkeley Book. Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1973.