When Busby Berkely did choreography, he did it in a big way. He choreographed nearly thirty movies (and directed another thirty) with many of the movies having beautiful kaleidoscopic dance sequences of scores of beautiful nearly-cloned showgirls dancing or sometimes swimming in geometric patterms. The beautiful flower sequence is actually from Spin a Little Web of Dreams from Fashions of 1934 and the water slide is from By a Waterfall from Footlight Parade.
The song featured in this montage of Berkely choreograpy highlights is Artie Shaw's recording of Stardust with Billy Butterfield on trumpet and Jack Jenney on trombone.
Stardust was supposedly composed by Hoagy Carmichael in the late 1920s while he was playing in a band at the Keuka Hotel in the beautiful Finger Lakes region of New York. You can see a photo of the old Keuka Hotel in this Great Show Tune Bonus. I'm actually vacationing just across Keuka Lake from this spot as I write this. The water is a crystal clear blue during the day. At night I can lie on the dock sipping my Dr. Konstantin Frank wine, listening to great showtunes, and gazing at the same dusting of stars that Hoagy Carmichael saw.
Mitchell Parish added his thoughts to Carmichael's to create these lyrics:
And now the purple dusk of twilight time
Steals across the meadows of my heart
High up in the sky the little stars climb
Always reminding me that we're apart
You wander down the lane and far away
Leaving me a song that will not die
Love is now the stardust of yesterday
The music of the years gone by
Sometimes I wonder why I spend
The lonely night dreaming of a song
The melody haunts my reverie
And I am once again with you
When our love was new
And each kiss an inspiration
But that was long ago
Now my consolation
Is in the stardust of a song
Beside the garden wall
When stars are bright
You are in my arms
The nightingale tells his fairy tale
of paradise where roses bloom
Though I dream in vain
In my heart it will remain
My stardust melody
the memory of love's refrain
