The all singing and all dancing book

I recently watched a Berkeley DVD (The Busby Berkeley Disc, Warner Home Video / Turner Entertainment) with twenty-one musical numbers from the films he created with those amazing dancing routines. At 163 minutes it beats having to sit through the original movies, now with very dated plotting and dialogue.

This title, published in 1973, is the perfect complement to the DVD. Essentially a book of 250 photos, movie stills and other related images, the first twenty-two pages has an illustrated essay of Berkeley's life. All his films, from 1930 to 1962, are included with production details, cast list and a description of the film, this I found particularly useful when watching the DVD and I wanted to know more about one of those amazing dance sequences and how he shot it.

* Incidentally Rhino Movie Music label issued, in 1995, a two disc CD set of the original tracks from the movies, it includes an informative forty-four page illustrated book (see the top photo).