“The Gang’s All Here” at Film Forum

Carmen Miranda in "The Gang's All Here," at Film Forum

From April 20 – 26 Film Forum will present an eye popping, 35mm, restored print of the 1943 Busby Berkeley Technicolor extravaganza “The Gang’s All Here.”  True to its title the movie is a compendium of popular culture figures from the World War II era: Alice Faye, Benny Goodman, radio personality Phil Baker, dancer Tony De Marco and singer/dancer Carmen Miranda.  It is a fascinating, virtual window into another era.

“A Tribute to the Nicholas Brothers” at Film Forum

Fayard (left) and Harold Nicholas.

On Monday, September 19 Film Forum had one of their great special events, “A Tribute to the Nicholas Brothers,” presented by Bruce Goldstein, Film Forum’s Director of Repertory Programming.  The Nicholas Brother, Fayard and Harold, were an African American dance team that had a 70-year long career starting in the 1930s.  They made movies, starred on Broadway, TV, performed in Paris and headlined at New York’s famous, and infamous, Cotton Club.  In one of the interviews it is pointed out that the only art form they did not try was opera.

Goldstein, who actually came to know the Nicholas Brothers, said he has had a 30-year obsession with the two dancers, who, by the way, were also pretty good singers.  Beginning in 1980 Goldstein decided that he wanted to know more about them and wanted more people to know who they were.