Pre-Code Musicals: Eroticism revealed. The Case of Busby Berkeley

Busby Berkeley (1895 –1976) was a Hollywood musical director. Berkeley was famous for

designing complex musical acts that were considered avant-gardist and innovative for his

time. His shows often involved a big group of showgirls and complex choreography to form

complex headshot patterns for Hollywood. He was born to actress Gertrude and at the age of

five Berkeley made his debut in a family production. His role in the army during WWI, had

him designing formations and military drills. After his experience in the army, he later

became a dance director and directed a few Broadway shows. He first worked with MGM

after later on shifting to Warner Bros. which also marked a technical shift from Black and

White to Technicolor productions in his musicals. Three of this most famous musicals were

42nd Street (1933) that was his real cinematic breakthrough and The Gold Diggers (1933),

Dames (1934) to which this paper will make frequent references. For the purpose of this

reflexion and for thematic relevance only the pre-code musicals of Berkeley will be discussed

and analysed.

In this reflexion on the eroticism belying in the works of Busby Berkeley I will proceed in

three stages. First, I will consider the ways in which eroticism manifests itself in Berkeley’s

musicals. This will be done through an exploration of the visual manipulation of the female

body image, the ways through which camera movements intensify the erotic potentiality of

the female face and other body parts, how clothes enhance the cinematic space with a

constant and heightened emphasis on its erotic appeal, aspects of nudity and dazzling patterns

will also be considered in the creation of this erotic illusion. The second part of this paper

will explore the reasons why there was such a persistent demonstration of eroticism in the

work of Berkeley through some feminist views and will visit the underlying reasons why

female objectification was a better source of entertainment for the unconscious patriarchal

form behind female eroticism. Finally, in the last part of this reflexion a new explanation

instead of the feminist view of the female objectification will be suggested and the idea of the

spectacle will be considered and will be placed within the framework of the depression and

the need to create a revival of the American dream in a desperate try to fight the gloom.

I. Celebrated entertainment through the physical manifestations of

eroticism

A. The body and the sensorial experience

“Show me the legs […]”, 42nd Street (1933)

It would definitely be true of Berkeley to say that if entertainment was the prime aim of his

musicals, the means through which he would get there would be eroticism. Berkeley or Buzz

as he was known in closed circles, produced his own version of the showgirls featuring in his

numbers. He would pick them and they would all hace to be pretty, young and white and that

was already his first step towards luring the viewers into an erotic experience.

This sensual experience would come through the manifest – that of the female body.

Berkeley used the female body as a raw piece of material. He would remould it, modify the

brightness of the image, multiply the cinematic cuts, create the illusion of twirling effects to

heighten the cinematic experience. Indeed much of what happens to Berkeley’s numbers,

happens in the lab. This is where all the editing happens and this is quite new in Hollywood

since Berkeley would try to marry the editing to the actual act of filming to create a result of

a rare complexity. On ‘stage’, where all the action is taking place and where all the camera

works happen, the camera becomes an active participant and is not merely a passive observer.

Berkeley would assume the strangest positions just to capture the best shots and the camera

would move accordingly.

It is through this movement of the camera that is sensual in itself in that it is trying to seduce

to the showgirls to ‘give more’, that Berkeley’s quasi-obsession for female legs becomes

obvious. Throughout his work, Berkeley will always focus the camera on the leg movements.

In 42nd Street, one of the numbers in the musical by the same name, Ruby Keeler portrays a

talented tap dancer and Berkeley mobilizes the camera for a few moments on the tap dancer’s

legs and this fixation of the camera is in itself erotic since there is no visual alternative to

Keeler’s legs; the viewer has no choice but to watch the screen and hence, those pair of legs

or to simply look away from the screen itself. This illustrates one of those occasions where

Berkeley purports to get a fixed shot whose object is the showgirl dancing, but very often his

camera would just travel recklessly -or what would appear to be a reckless move, since in

reality there is almost a mathematic perfection in his calculated moves – and the erotic

experience would be initiated. The camera would focus, zoom and film from a lowered

position and the camera would become this instrument of investigation of the female body so

much so that this could even be compared to a medical inspection of a body. The erotic

experience created by this intense camera search is therefore initiated even before the musical

is created.

In the tap dancing scene, Ruby Keeler is wearing some shorts that are very revealing and this

is an aspect that Buzz will always tap into throughout his career. His showgirls are always

wearing minimal clothes. When it comes to entertainment and eroticism, the less the better

indeed. Nudity plays a major part in Berkeley’s work. In the very famous number ‘We’re on

the money’ which is part of the musical The Gold Diggers (1933), the showgirls are wearing

attires made of coins with a revealing cleavage and fact is, nudity is never stand-alone in

Berkeley’s work – it is always supported by movement and dancing and it is through this

interplay between movement and nudity that reinforces each other, that the viewers are thrust

into a sensorial world. Moreover, the movements themselves are not too abrupt and the girls

are lined one behind the other and there is this slow and sensual circular motion of the arms

that exudes of elegance, synchronisation and gentility. In the number “By a waterfall”, which

is all about aqua-dance in a big pool of water with a waterfall in the background, Berkeley

goes one step further in playing on the impression of the adulated viewer. Indeed, in that

number the girls give the impression that they are not wearing anything and that there are

only a few leaves hanging around to mask them. In fact, they are wearing a nude whole-body

costume that is supposed to mislead the viewers into thinking that they are not wearing

anything and this nudity ends up being a faked one. There is something about this suggestive

nudity that is very striking since it is not real. It is an illusion – or more appropriately, an

erotic illusion and this is quite revealing of Berkeley’s general approach to entertainment –

much of it happens in the realm of a make-believe world where the viewer is enticed into

accepting that distorted view of reality, and it is only through this distorted view of reality

that the sensual experience can take place and when it does, it intensifies the spectacle.

Indeed, any piece of entertainment can be brilliantly accomplished by using other substitutes

for Berkeley’s attractive showgirls – fully-dressed men for instance – but the element of

female nudity or suggestive female nudity adds to that missing element of magic and

eroticism that elevates the world of entertainment and skyrockets it into a new realm of

illusion and pleasure.

It is of little use going too far off by using fully-dressed men as examples of female

substitutes. Staying within Berkeley’s ‘show’, but leaping one year later, after 42nd Street

(1933) or The Gold Diggers (1933), Dames (1934) stands as a stark contrast. In Dames, the

showgirls are wearing long dresses and the legs or the generous cleavage are nowhere to be

seen anymore. This is clearly an effect of the Hay’s code that came into force just one month

before the release of the musical and the third Don’ts of the list states clearly that “Any

licentious or suggestive nudity” should not be shown in any motion picture. This poses a real

problem to Berkeley who has been betting a lot on nudity or ‘suggestive nudity’ to create

entertainment so far and the Code essentially incapacitates him here. As way of

circumventing the Code, Berkeley, will turn to more implicit means of erotizing his showgirls

in his later productions. This is worth mentioning although this paper will be dealing

exclusively with Berkeley’s pre-code productions.

“[…] she’s got pretty face too”, 42nd Street

However, whether before or after the enforcement of the Hay’s code, there is one aspect of

the female representation that Buzz will continue to exploit over and over again without any

risk of alarming the MPPDA, and this is the female face. In the same way that Berkeley had

some form of obsession with female legs, his musicals always paused on the faces of his

showgirls. At the beginning of every number, he would zoom on their faces and this is well

illustrated in “We’re on the money” from The Gold Diggers, in the closing number of Dames

or another number in that same musical – “I’ve only got eyes for you” - that actually

concentrates solely on faces.

Berkeley would zoom on those faces, all of them – smiling, young and beautiful and exuding

a delightful joy, and this idea of celebrated female beauty would be very attractive because it

again has all the elements of the surreal and of perfection. It was some sort of ritual for

Berkeley to show the faces of his showgirls at the opening of his numbers because it already

set the mood for the rest of his show and has a strong blatant message; there’ll be beautiful

young women – the winning ingredients for some great entertainment. It cannot be said at

this point that Berkeley taps into eroticism – within the limits of course of how sensual can a

face be but it certainly prepares the viewers for the coming sensuality in the number and it

even reinforces the erotic content since the showgirls are not solely pairs of legs, or dancing

bodies on stage. At this time Berkeley is under contract with MGM and the fund he receives

is not unlimited which means that the avant-gardist producer, is limited to creating musicals

in Black and White. Now, it is surely a challenge to create musicals that are supposed to

exude pleasure and joy while the Technicolor technique already exists but while the director

is limited to filming in Black and White. Berkeley however seems to circumvent this

limitation quite effortlessly. As is often the case when it comes to Black and White movies

where the mood has to be a light one or positively charged, the use of very bright projectors

behind the screen is essential. It can indeed be observed that many of those scenes where

Berkeley’s camera captures a close-up shot of his showgirls’ face, would be almost

unnaturally bright. Lighting for a Black and white piece is very significant since a slight

change in the brightness could change the whole mood of the scene but Berkeley is still very

skilful in this manipulation of lighting since he still succeeds in transmitting the light-

heartedness of his musicals and in so doing, Berkeley reminds us that the Black and white

technique is much more than just what the name suggests but that there is a whole story that

the different gradation on the grayscale can tell, but at the same time, this technique is not

limitless. It still remains challenging to convey some emotions, which explains the marked

emphasis on bright and striking costumes. For instance, in the number “We’re on the

money”, the showgirls are clad in an attire made of what looks like gold coins. Costumes

therefore help to cater for the limitations of the lighting.

II. The darker side of the entertainment – an eroticism that belies a

daunting perversion of the female representation in a patriarchal

society

One very striking aspect of Berkeley’s work and what many feminists have pointed out, of

which Laura Mulvey in her article “Visual pleasure and narrative cinema” is the exploitation

of the female body of and in itself to satisfy the yearnings of the male gaze. The legs once

again plays an important role in this big machine of entertainment but this time it is not an

obsession that comes purely from within Berkeley, but he seems to be aiming at an

attainment of a male ideal of beauty and sensuality, that is inseparable from dance acts that

reveal the attractiveness of a moving pair of svelte female legs. The focus of this paper on

female legs may seem disturbing in some respects but that is really what Berkeley’s musicals

are about, and very often it is not only restricted to the showgirls just wearing shorts or short

skirts but this is made possible through the one particular filming technique of Buzz famously

known as the kaleidoscope whereby the camera would be placed at an elevated height from

the ground to get a topshot of the showgirls. This would allow the viewer to get a completely

different perspective of a stage musical. This is where Berkeley really ruptures with the live

Broadway shows from which his numbers are inspired. On a live stage, there is the

perception of the spectators is static throughout but with Berkeley, the viewer is able to see

the showgirls from down under, they’re able to travel around them in a circular motion and

they can even be perched on the roof top to watch them from above, which never fails to

amaze and please and which definitely represents “a cinematic vision of entertainment in

which the camera itself dances and the spectator identifies with the movements” (Cohan,

131). To be able to have an overhead shot of the showgirls is no ordinary task though.

Berkeley has to have recourse to a technique still very novel and avant-gardist at the time; he

bores a hole in the roof of the studio to be able to get a perfect kaleidoscopic view of his

prodigies and this kaleidoscopic technique will end up becoming his signature technique in

the film industry.

From above, the faces can barely be recognised. All the girls look similar. They are all

dressed the in same way as it is and they look inseparable, integrated touching each other to

form this gigantic lifeless-seeming but still mobile entity. They could or this entity could be

compared to a big machine that is seen from above and controlled by the invisible but

omnipotent producer. The idea of them being a mechanised entity is thrust upon us and it is

therefore more understandable why Laura Mulvey saw the dehumanisation of the female sex

and the objectification of the female body through Berkeley’s work. For Mulvey, the erotic

side of the spectacle is deeply intertwined with some form of sick and obsessive scopophilia

and the eroticism created does indeed contribute to the entertainment but it is a darker form of

entertainment since it reveals the unconscious patriarchal construct of society in general. She

points to “voyeuristic potential” of the cinema in that it triggers male viewers from finding

sexual pleasure from merely watching The Gold Diggers for instance. The issue with Mulvey

is that she seems to condemn voyeuristic phantasies in general but this is getting dangerous

too close to the freedom of artistic creation. It was the purpose of Berkeley to tap into the

sexual potential of his showgirls to create an atmosphere of pleasure and happiness for the

audience in order to keep them coming and looking for more. If there is anything to single out

and to criticize it is female objectification, whether or not it is used to create an erotic

experience within a spectacle, and the visual pleasure should not in and of itself be reproved.

The question then can be asked, as to whether there is any real female objectification in

Berkeley’s musicals and whether eroticism contributes to it in any way.

III. Eroticism in Berkeley’s musicals revisited – the male gaze exists

but it’s less about the perception of the viewers than the intended

aim of the director.

In this part, there will be a more marked emphasis on the symbolism of spectacle. The

spectacle serves to please but it is also an artform since it gives free reign, especially in this

precode era, to the show directors. As a musical director, Busby Berkeley is definitely an

avant-gardist. He would always make sure that he uses state of the art equipment and he

himself would use techniques that are daring and innovative. The kaleidoscope technique is

in itself a perfect example of this – now although he hasn’t invented this technique and has

only adopted it, he did indeed personalise it and turned it into his signature technique. What

makes Berkeley’s musicals really stand apart is their ability to bring the viewer on a whole

new level of entertainment. The elements of surprise and ‘unexpectancy’ of his numbers

almost seem to rely much the dreamy and the magical. His shows are indeed never similar

and he would always try to innovate and bring in some new materials, some new techniques

each time. Sometimes this will be in the form of a pool and a waterfall with “By a waterfall”,

sometimes it will be through an impression of flying in “Dames” or at other times, a girls

playing a neon violin in the dark. His acts even seem to have this sharp visual mathematics in

them. The showgirls are perfectly synchronised in every act in a way that is almost surreal

and which thus never fails to amaze absolutely. In The Gold Diggers, there is an act where

the girls march next to each other with a few props such as flags, trumpets and drums. They

are all decked up like a female militia and they all move with an incredible synchronicity.

Their movements are fluent and smooth. This reminds us that Berkeley was part of the army

for a few months before he started working on musicals and his role was unsurprisingly to

assist and design the military drills. He would sit down for hours of this duty and reflect on

ways of perfecting the drills and making the whole group integrate each other. This definitely

reflects on his numbers and it helps to explain the reason behind this stringent attention to the

details of formation and groupings in this shows. We would this that Berkeley’s spectacles

are absolutely of a new and dominant genre in the field of musicals which could explain why

feminists have undermined his work a lot for erotising and objectifying women but in reality,

his numbers are not genuinely innovative. Despite the fact that Berkeley was a real avant-

gardist, his shows were in reality, strongly reminiscent of the old Broadway live musicals

where dancers and actors would exude pleasure and happiness and would remind us of the

carnival world with their costumes and their daring acts. It seems that through his acts, he

keeps trying to reproduce those live shows to recreate the same feelings of amazement and

surprise that animated audiences at that time. The same feeling but through a different

artform this time. A retranscription of this world of pleasure and carefreeness seems much in

line with the theme of escapism and in this case this could be interpreted as an escapism from

a crippled and sick mother to whom he was devoted for many years until her death but it

could also have been an escapism from his failed marital life. He had indeed been married

and divorced six times. No wonder that his musicals entertained him as much as it did his

viewers.

Escapism becomes an important thematic even for society in general – an escapism from the

dire financial situation of the country and the socio-eco troubles underpinning the various

aspects of life. The year 1933 was undoubtedly according to historians, the darkest year

America has ever experienced in terms of financial crisis and The Gold Digger is one of the

only Hollywood production that directly and starkly portrays the hardships of people at that

time and it makes does so in an even more blatant way in that it places the non-musical

diegesis of the movie next to the idea of the unlimited wild overflow of riches and gold coins

and the song “We’re in the money” in that same movie is in fact in line with Roosevelt’s

‘New deal’ policy where he would encourage people to fight and stay strong despite the

financial crisis and that with hard work they would sure reap the benefits of their sacrifice

which is what The Gold Diggers is really and it is really trying to re-inspire people and to

give a new meaning to the American dream.

Feminists like Laura Mulvey have undeniably criticised Berkeley for objectifying women in

this musicals by eroticising them. However, it has to be considered that feminism, especially

the time Mulvey was writing, was a new wave idealogy and that feminists would come out

quite fiercely against any equivocal representation of women. If it is definitely true that

Hollywood has objectified women a lot through its movies, it would be somehow

exaggerated to pin down Berkeley’s work as essentially derogatory to the female figure.

Berkeley in reality glorifies women in his shows because for him the female figure represents

a celebrated ideal. He was a genuine art who discovered his vocation right from when he was

in the army and being able to design and choreograph all these musical acts was a way for his

to unleash his artistic mind and we definitely get the impression that Berkeley genuinely

revered art as portrayed by women. Many of the showgirls, like Esther Williams who was his

main cast in most of his early shows later revealed how strict Berkeley was when it came to

his acts, how he always aimed towards a perfected artistic ideal of the numbers and

formations, how very demanding he was when it came to the performance of his work but

also how very respectful he’s always been towards all of his showgirls. His respect for ‘his’

women and his artistic asceticism does not of course exclude the idea of and in itself that he

might have contributed to an objectified portrayal of women but it does make us wonder as to

the real symbolism behind Berkeley’s portrayal of women. The answer might unfortunately

not be clear and unequivocal. Art is very subjective and as with any other art form, one will

see in it the reflections of the society one is living in and the ideals that have mouldered one’s

mind. Feminists like Mulvey have no doubt been made impartial by their ideologies and

political motivations. They can only produce a biased reflexion. However, it could be

possible and it would be interesting to take their view to analyse Berkeley’s portray of

women and eroticism. Considering Berkeley did make of women like objects, it is less likely

that he would have done because he thought that objectifying women would form the basis of

a beautiful act for and in itself, but instead he most probably did so to attain his artistic ideals.

Having men in an act would most certainly not have reached the same level of sanctity, the

same illusion of perfection as women would. Women simply have this ability to enchant both

men and other women. Unfortunately, what many feminists forget is that, for people like

Berkeley, acts and numbers end up transcending the limits of the patriarchal construct. No

doubt, Berkeley would have used men in his numbers were he sure that they could have

portrayed the same ideal as his women did.

Conclusion

This reflexion on the eroticism that underpins the work of Berkeley is a good reference since

it allows for the exploration of other related issues that also make his musicals controversial –

some of which being, and as have already been discussed above, female objectification and

the spectacle.

In the first of this paper, the idea of eroticism was explored through the expression of the

female body. The various camera techniques, the kaleidoscope and the lighting were also

considered. Berkeley’s attention and quasi-obsession was also considered. In the second of

this paper, a rather darker side of the world of entertainment was taken. Some feminist views

on female objectification and scopophilia have been put forward and the patriarchal

unconscious and the male gaze have been explored. Finally, in the concluding parts of this

reflexion, a the notions of eroticism and its effect on the objectification was revisited and it

was said that instead of aiming at objectifying women, Berkeley has only been serving the

purpose of art but that since art in itself is the reflection of society, it would not be surprising

at the same time that women would enjoy less equality.

We may never know now what the real purpose of Berkeley behind his musicals was since he

is longer here to tell us

Bibliography

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