Busby Berkeley
"By a Waterfall," from the film Footlight Parade (1933) exemplifies the spectacular scale of Busby Berkeley's production numbers, which created geometric patterns out of female bodies. (FP-82; from the collections of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, Madison, Wisconsin.) Dance director Busby Berkeley (1895-1976) may have had his most critical training in the army. As an entertainment officer in 1917, he gained a reputation for exceptional drill routines. By 1930 he had...