The Oscars can still astonish: They still know how to put on the big musical number, with a hundred dancing performers in top hats, moving with Busby Berkeley precision.

CNN: Behind the scenes at the Academy Awards

Meanwhile, the racy pre-Code humor evokes pre-Christian immorality, and a couple of production numbers by Busby Berkeley (including an offensive one featuring Cantor in blackface) luridly choreograph the elaborate social rituals built up around the biological drive to procreate.

NEWYORKER: Roman Scandals

At this point, I'm so surfeited on natural spectacles, it's faintly disappointing not to see a troupe of all these things executing Busby Berkeley maneuvers for my personal delectation.

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