Glorifying the American Girl

For Ziegfeld research it's a must, and you get to see many of Ziegfeld's stars perform, but the sound is poor and there isn't a whole lot of conflict to drive the plot....

As a woman, it's nice to hear Mary Eaton speak frankly to her boyfriend (a dreamy Edward Crandall) about wanting to live a little and see what she can do before settling down and raising children. He's hurt, but not petulant or insulting (like every boyfriend/husband in ZIEGFELD GIRL and THE DOLLY SISTERS). He does wait for her and seems genuinely supportive of her success, before eventually settling for girl-next-door Gloria Shea -- who actually is treated pretty badly by the film, abandoned and hit by a car! Eaton discovers her boyfriend's moved on just as she goes out for the finale in the Follies, and you see the emotions hit her as she struggles under the weight of an enormous headpiece that cascades around her like a fountain.... OK, so it's not exactly heartbreak, but at least she doesn't die of alcohol poisoning or get slapped around like in the exploitational ZIEGFELD GIRL.

The production numbers are tame by Hollywood standards, and we wait the whole film to finally see one of Flo's evolving stage contraptions. Most of the numbers are arranged in tableau including a gorgeous "painting" of a mermaid being pulled from the sea in a fisherman's net as the Pope and neoclassical figures stand by. Tableaux don't make interesting cinema, but I was happy to see some man flesh in these scenes too as nearly nude males (like Johnny Weissmuller here) were apparently excised from the later interpretations of Ziggy's stagework -- ironic since Ziegfeld had his first success displaying the muscular Sandow, so you know he wasn't shy about it.

Eddie Cantor has an overly long vaudeville scene as a Jewish tailor, but is actually funnier in a brief exchange with a haughty showgirl, Rudy Vallee might have been a somebody back then but he sure doesn't show it here. Helen Morgan sings her signature torch song from atop a piano (a schtick she invented by necessity as she was too short to be seen in many music halls). She is excellent in the film APPLAUSE which also came out in 1929 where she played an aging showgirl trying to keep her daughter out of theater life, but unfortunately her performance here suffers from the antique recording.

Ted Shawn is the imaginative choreographer who arranges the dancers as exotic animals, graceful swans, and nouveau beauties clutching glass globes. Shawn would create the Jacob's Pillow dance festival and was instrumental in forming a uniquely American branch of Modern Dance.

There's a lot of history here, and the opening montage is almost Fritz Lang-esquire, but I wouldn't try to show the whole film to any of my friends. The film quality is terribly uneaven, suggesting inconsistent filmstock. Silent footage from a premier was spliced in so we can get a glimpse of Ziegfeld and Billie Burke, as well as other Broadway dignitaries of the age. It's a tragedy the technicolor scenes are lost (at least, not a part of the Alpha Video release). All-in-all it's not a bad film, the pre-code heroine isn't "punished" for having career ambitions but she experiences some bumps and bruises along the way (by her selfish mother and an unscrupulous manager). She loses the cute guy but he comes to congratulate her when she stars in the show and that seems like a fair compromise; much better than the plots that would slap down any woman who dared to have her own goals in later films.

We should encourage each other to smile indulgently at the antics and musical tastes of our great-grandparents. After all, our own great-grandchildren will soon enough be doing the same to us. In Glorifying the American Girl, the story of Gloria Hughes' ambition to be a musical star is appliquéd onto the Broadway extravaganza of a Florenz Ziegfeld show. We get songs, dances, fabulous costumes, show girls, ukulele plucking, comedy skits, a near-fatal accident, lechery, tearful farewells, love lost and love found and, of course, a big finale where Gloria's success is tempered only by the sadness of a love too long delayed, yet still made satisfying by the happiness of her two best friends. In other words, there's much to snicker about...just don't take your own all-too-soon-to-be-dated enthusiasms too seriously.

Briefly, Gloria (Mary Eaton) works with Buddy (Edward Crandall) and Barbara (Gloria Shea) at Heiman's Department store. Buddy plays piano while Gloria sings the latest songs so that customers will buy the sheet music. Barbara is a clerk. Buddy loves Gloria. Barbara loves Buddy. Gloria thinks she loves Buddy. When Danny Miller (Dan Healy), part of the song and dance team, Miller and Mooney, fires his latest Mooney at the company picnic, he spots Gloria dancing. Before long Gloria has left Heiman's and become the replacement Mooney. While Buddy pines for Gloria and Barbara pines for Buddy, Miller and Gloria travel the country with their act. They're spotted by a scout working for Florenz Ziegfeld and arrive in New York with big hopes and big dreams. It doesn't work out. But Gloria fights for a chance to show her stuff and lands a spot in the show. Danny, who is something of a lech as well as a good dancer, hangs around because of a contract he had Gloria sign. Now opening night approaches. But wait. Barbara has been hit by a taxi and is in critical condition. Buddy realizes he loves Barbara. Gloria goes on with the show. In a miracle of careless editing, Buddy and Barbara are in their seats, part of the happy, applauding audience as Gloria, learning at the last minute that Buddy and Barbara are wed, achieves fame.

What makes all this dated nonsense watchable is the innocence of the acting, the songs and dances, and, during the last third of the movie, the Ziegfeld Follies on stage. The Follies were lush, fabulous variety shows. We have an odd tableau that features nuns, a bishop, scantily clad girls and half naked chorus boys probably doing something religiously questionable; there's Helen Morgan sitting on a piano telling us another sad story in song about her man; here's Rudy Vallee singing to us that he's just a vagabond lover looking for the girl in his vagabond dreams; front and center are high-kicking chorines with none of the self- conscious angst of A Chorus Line; they just keep slapping the leather to the floor. And just before Gloria's big starring number, here's Eddy Cantor with an associate and a stooge doing a long comedy bit about a customer unfortunate enough to enter the tailor shop where Cantor works. While Vallee looks much like the self-satisfied, dirty old man he turned into, Helen Morgan is great. She could deliver a torch song like few before or since. And Eddie Cantor gives all us aging youngsters a chance to see what made him such a big star in vaudeville and on Broadway. The humor is ethnic (e.g., broad and Jewish), the timing is perfect and the routine keeps building. I don't know who his stooge was or the fellow who played Cantor's boss, but they were first-rate second bananas.

This movie was supposed to have had the Ziegfeld Follies sequences shot in Technicolor. Perhaps somewhere there is a VHS or DVD version that reflects this. Most copies I've heard of have just been slapped together as cheaply as possible with no color and, often, with a lot of chopping. In the version I have, Barbara's auto accident, Buddy's promise of love, their marriage and then their being seated in the audience while Gloria triumphs is cut and edited incomprehensibly. The movie is in the public domain and looks every bit of it. Perhaps not much of a loss, but it would have been good to have seen Morgan and Cantor under better circumstances.

If you want to catch a viewing of this film in nearly all of its "Glory" -- 2-Strip Technicolor and all--simply get on a plane to Los Angeles and taxi over to the UCLA Film Archives in Westwood. Oh...you'll have to make an appointment well in advance...for "Scholarly and/or Academic Pursuits Only"...for a private screening, as this film resides in the vault. It is rarely screened, except for Film Preservation Retrospectives... or is occasionally loaned out to "your town"...if you happen to live in NY State, or Australia, or Europe. All versions on VHS or DVD are poorly duped dupe-of-a-dupe copies of badly battered eminent domain prints, but unfortunately, that's all there is "out there" until UCLA decides to release their terrific library of 2-Strip Technicolor films onto the world some day! For a couple of swell Technicolor scenes of the film's finale, I suggest that you visit the sensational, stupendous, colossal "Vitaphone Varieties" website run by Jeff Cohen at vitaphone.blogspot.com/.

Though the sound is sometimes weak and distant and the story is hardly compelling, there is still much of interest.

This is the only film with scenes from a Florenz Ziegfeld show. They are shot in two color (red/green) Technicolor. One shows a tableau and the other is a dance sequence. Both show elaborate Ziegfeld costumes.

Eddie Cantor's tailor act is really funny and there are several other vaudeville sequences as well. Mary Eaton's singing is fine, as is much of the dancing, both show and ballet style.

There are two levels to this film. First is your chance to get a glimpse of history. You get to see an example (brief) of what one of the Ziegfeld Follies was. In the process of that you get a chance to hear and see Rudy Vallee and Helen Morgan sing, and see one of Eddie Cantor's skits. You also get a feel for the pomp and extravagance of the follies. What a difference to today's entertainment. In a sense, the folllies were a preview of what became the variety shows on television. And, those shows are gone too. And the movie catches how interested the general public was when a show opened. There was no tv in 1929 so radio went on the air describing all of the people who were attending the opening.

The second level is a fairly decent and interesting story. A story of a young woman who wanted to achieve success. And, in her drive for that success, we see the life she leaves behind and the effect that has on people as she drives forward. Part of that drive comes from her mother who wanted to be a part of that success. It is interesting how she also tries to drive Mary Eaton into making the decisions that she wants made and how she tries to manipulate those decisions. The movie does get across that there is a price to pay for success.

An interesting movie and worth seeing for a glimpse into the late 20's.