Carmen Miranda: Bananas is My Business (1995)
Carmen Miranda: Bananas is My Business is a 1995 documentary filmed and directed by Helena Solberg. This documentary chronicles the life and career of Carmen Miranda, Hollywoods symbol of Latin American spirit in the 1940s. The documentary tells her life story in a series of stages, beginning with her roots and rise to stardom in her home country of Brazil, her transition and development as a performer in the United States, first on Broadway in New York City, then in the film industry after she signed with 20th Century Fox in Los Angeles, and her later years in life, before her death and her return to Brazil. Helena Solberg uses two different film styles, biography and directorial reverie, in which Solberg uses actor Erick Barretos to “resurrect Carmen Miranda in several fantasy sequences. Helena Solbergs attitudes shift throughout the documentary from awe-struck child to empathetic and forgiving Brazilian woman, which she uses to represent the contradictory subplots of Carmen Mirandas life. Alongside the fantasy like resurrection of Miranda, Solberg accompanies her documentary with multiple interviews with Carmen Mirandas friends and family, like her sister, her first boyfriend, the guitarist Laurindo Almeida, samba composer Synval Silva, Cesar Romero, and Alice Faye.
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Cast:
- Cynthia Adler
- Alice Faye — Herself
- Aloísio de Oliveira — Himself
- Aurora Miranda — Herself
- Eric Barreto
- Carmen Miranda — Herself (archive footage)
- Cássio Barsante — Herself
- Cesar Romero — Herself
- Mario Cunha
- Cynthia Adler — Hedda Hopper
- Estela Romero — Herself
- Alice Faye
- Helena Solberg — Himself (Narrator)
- Ivan Jack — Himself
- Joanne Allen — Himself
- Jorge Guinle — Himself
- Laurindo Almeida — Himself
- Letícia Monte — Carmen Miranda (teenager)
- Mario Cunha — Himself
- Aurora Miranda
- Carmen Miranda
- Leticia Monte
- Rita Moreno
- Helena Solberg Narrator
- Raul Smandek — Himself
- Rita Moreno — Herself
- Cesar Romero
- Synval Silva
- Synval Silva — Himself
- Ted Allan — Himself