Glorifying the American Girl

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/.

Yes, tastes have certainly changed since Ziegfeld's time. Driven by technological improvement and boredom with all things nice this kind of lavish entertainment has gradually been replaced with arty and cheap realism where producers compete to grind the audience's minds into the dirt. Give me honest fantasy anyday!

It's just a story about a woman who unwittingly throws her boyfriend away in her pursuit for fame as a dancer. She enters into a pact with the Devil in the form of a two bit hoofer – she makes it into a Ziegfeld show, he has 5 years contractual sponging off her ahead of him. There's plenty of singing and dancing before the main show, none of it very good but all of it wonderful to watch. The version I saw was in b&w throughout although it's pretty obvious which bits are meant to be in colour, and it ran 94 minutes suggesting it wasn't from the 1950's TV print. A lot of silent films have been restored and preserved but most early talkies have been left to rot away, the soundtrack here has partially returned to blast and crackle and the photography is uneven suggesting a patchwork quilt of available segments has been assembled over the years – so concentration is often needed! I hope the remastered version hasn't got these flaws - but at least every word was clearly enunciated for the benefit of the microphone box. Favourite bits: The ambulance weaving through the streets of New York; the one and only Helen Morgan torch singing What Wouldn't I Do For That Man; the dreamy There Must Be Someone Waiting For Me; the stately and sumptuous sets and costumes of the show itself; even Rudy Vallee singing Vagabond Dreams - rather dully to be sure. I've always liked Eddie Cantor – especially singing, but imho his Jewish tailors shop sketch went on a couple of minutes too long.

So, a nice unassuming film with some spectacular moments and some great songs – well worth watching for people like me who can enjoy it through the ravages of time for what it was: nothing heavy, just (fairly) innocent entertainment.

Just because I gave this movie seven stars doesn't mean it will be entertaining to everyone or even most people. Its main value today is to get a rare glimpse at one of the earliest talkie musicals, and also see and hear what a Ziegfeld show might have been like right before the famous showman went broke in the stock market crash of 1929. Florenz Ziegfeld himself actually produced this film, which features his Ziegfeld Follies girls. However, he was not at all happy with the final product, which flopped at the box office.

The movie actually does have a plot of sorts, although its purpose in this film, as in many of the early talkie musicals, is mainly to set up the singing and dancing numbers. This film, though, is unusual in that the plot does actually teach a little unexpected lesson on the price of fame.

The film opens with Gloria, Barbara, and Buddy selling sheet music in a New York City department store. Gloria and Buddy have been sweethearts since childhood, but Gloria wants a career before she settles down. To complicate matters, Barbara is secretly in love with Buddy. A vaudeville hoofer sees Gloria dancing at a store picnic and wants to take her on as a dance partner. They take their act on the road and are spotted by one of Ziegfeld's talent scouts. Back in New York at the audition, the Follies want Gloria but not her partner. Unfortunately for Gloria, though, she signed a five year contract splitting all her earnings with her partner. Gloria becomes the star of Ziegfeld's new show, and this sets up the lavish production numbers of the last third of the film.

Particularly entertaining in the Ziegfeld production part of the film are performances by Helen Morgan, Rudy Valee, and Eddie Cantor. You have to remember that this film was made before there was any effective production code, so you'll likely be shocked at the revealing nature of some of the costumes in the production numbers and some of the language used. Unfortunately, although the last third of the film was shot in Technicolor, the DVD version is in black and white. Also, because of the limitations of technology and the age of this film, there are many long shots of the production numbers with the Ziegfeld Follies girls that make it impossible to see the details of the lavish costumes and sets. However, in spite of its flaws, I'd recommend it to anyone interested in this period of history and these very early talkie gems of which so few are remaining in any form.

All of the versions floating around are in shaggy shape and most are incomplete. There is a fully restored version - I believe it is at UCLA - that has the Technicolor footage restored. Maybe someday we'll see the complete original version on DVD.

Mary Eaton, who played Gloria, had a hard time dealing with the loss of her fame as talking pictures left her behind. She died at the age of only 48 due to her chronic alcoholism. In contrast, her sister Doris, who never had Mary's fame, is the last surviving Ziegfeld girl at age 105 as I am writing this. As of the spring of 2009 she was still making public appearances. How odd that the star of one of the first talking pictures made on the subject of the price of fame would have a life that teaches such a sad lesson on that same subject.

The opening sequence of the picture is quite a sight to see, the way it was edited, the positioning of the sets and actors featured in the opening, and to top it all off, a few short clips from Ziegfeld's best known music from his best known music numbers (including "A Pretty Girl is like a Melody"). The rest is for all of you to see. It is available from Alpha Video and maybe a few public-domain distributors (do not expect to find it on DVD, it is a fairly rare film and I was lucky to get mine). The scenes that were shot in Technicolor are somewhat visible if you squint real, real hard. This is a 75 year old picture we're talking about here, it's amazing how much footage of Technicolor has survived since then, because there is so little of it. I originally purchased this picture to see what it's Technicolor sequences look like. I was very suprised though with how it turned out to be. Whoever did the choreography for this picture was a genius because the dancing is very well done. Adding it to your collection (whether or not you chose to do so) will certainly be worth your money.

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.