I've seen the movie at least half a dozen times in the last few years, but I must not have watched it since I began watching Bollywood, so it was before my sensitivity to clothing in musical numbers began to (over-)develop. If you get a chance, please do check out the "Minstrel Show/Mandy" number for the ultimate in crazy, including men in red gloves and bottle-green suits and bespangled backup dancers with glittery tamborines with faces drawn on them. This image doesn't do the song justice, but it does contain my favorite dance move, in which Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby skip-flap towards Vera-Ellen.
The set is weird too, with white and red scrolly, frothy, Chinoiserie-looking pieces that twirl around. Here's "Mandy," the second part of the song.
So, in the spirit of tight, shiny, sparkly, brightly-colored clothes from all cultures, happy holidays, fuggers. Try not to use the tinsel as an accessory.
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