Carmen Miranda: The Brazilian Bombshell

ClassyCo

ClassyCo

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Carmen Miranda was one of the most popular stars of wartime musicals for 20th Century-Fox in the 1940s. We've already discussed her a little in the Be Kind Rewind and Latin Lover threads, but I feel someone as trend-setting and unique as Miranda warranted her own thread.

Any takers?

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ClassyCo

ClassyCo

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Her famous "Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat" number from Busby Berkeley's THE GANG'S ALL HERE (1943):

 
ClassyCo

ClassyCo

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I purchased The Carmen Miranda Collection online and it came in last week. It contains five of her films, namely DOLL FACE, GREENWICH VILLAGE, THE GANG'S ALL HERE, SOMETHING FOR THE BOYS, and IF I'M LUCKY. These films co-star such Fox musical mainstays as Alice Faye and Vivian Blaine. My birthday is next month and my wife is setting up our big screen and projector and I hope to get some of these movies in the can. After I do that, I will post some reviews both here and over in the Alice Faye thread.

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Crimson

Crimson

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I've only seen a handful of the Fox musicals of the era, but mostly wasn't too impressed. Lacking the art deco panache of the Astaire-Rogers musicals or the artistic verve of the contemporaneous MGM musicals, the Fox films of Alice Faye and Betty Grable seemed blandly pleasant. So Carmen Miranda's appearances in these films gave them a jolt of energy; yet as gaudy and fun as she was, I find her appeal very limited. As a performer, she was probably more interesting off screen than on. Her life was well covered in the excellent documentary BANANAS IS MY BUSINESS, and the discussed-elsewhere episode of BKR did a great job of placing her curious career into socio-political context. Ten minutes of her is more than enough in my book.
 
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