Le grand Ziegfeld

It's hard to think of today, what with the theatre being a highbrow and typically minimalist medium, but back in the days before movies became big business, stage productions often presented the public with phenomenal displays of grandeur. In the early years of the twentieth century, Florenz Ziegfeld was a theatrical showman who had Busby Berkely's worship of feminine beauty and Cecil B. DeMille's sense of scale. He was creating Hollywood-style extravagance back when Hollywood was just a patch of scrubland.

Fast-forward to 1936, a couple of years after Ziegfeld's death, and cinema still bears his mark. Musicals (which were still often based around stage performances) were often showcases for a variety of dancing and singing talents, usually building to a spectacular finale. The Great Ziegfeld is more than just a biopic, it is the culmination of this strand in cinema; the first epic musical. Here we see the 30's musical's shimmering sets and full-on dance routines on a scale never before seen on the screen. Robert Z. Leonard directs with his usual sweeping camera moves, often slowly pulling back to reveal the size of the production. But he also lets his camera get deeply involved in the more dramatic scenes.

Apart from the various song-and-dance people involved, the casting here is very much a Hollywood affair. William Powell was then the go-to man for such smart and witty types. He and Myrna Loy were well-known as a screen couple, from The Thin Man pictures amongst others. They both give adequate portrayals, but in truth these two need a smaller, more intimate production to shine in their own right. The performance that best fits the size of The Great Ziegfeld is that of Luise Rainer. Melodramatic, full of presence, she seems always on the verge of breaking down into some farcical display of ham acting, but never quite does so. It's not a realistic performance by any stretch, but it is beautiful in its theatricality.

Ziegfeld's influence would live on in musical cinema for many years after his death. The Great Ziegfeld was just the first in a series of pictures tipping their hat to the producer. Meanwhile, many of the stars made famous by Ziegfeld – Billie Burke, Eddie Cantor, Will Rogers, Ray Bolger – were finding fruitful careers on the silver screen. It was, after all, the way of the future. You see, it wasn't just the depression that finished Ziegfeld. Even if he had lived, cinema would have provided him with too much competition to continue with his follies, especially with the advent of sound. But this is beside the point. If The Great Ziegfeld shows anything, it is that the spirit of showmanship that he championed could live on, if not in one medium then in another.

William Powell stars as Florenz Ziegfeld in his "biography" of the great Broadway producer. This is a lush and long film filled with great scenes and a few that are too long. Clocking in at about 3 hours, THE GREAT ZIEGFELD is one of MGM's biggest attempts at creating a blockbuster musical, and it won the Oscar for best film.

Powell is, as always, terrific. Oddly he did not receive an Oscar nomination for this film but did get one the same year for MY MAN GODFREY. Luise Rainer won the best actress Oscar for her performance as Anna Held. Myrna Loy plays Billie Burke. The great Fanny Brice appears as herself and just about steals the show until they stupidly and abruptly cut away from her as she starts singing "My Man." She doesn't show up again.

Ray Bolger gets a whole number to himself. And Dennis Morgan fronts the mammoth "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody" number (although it's the voice of Allan Jones), which ranks among the great production numbers of the era. The camera slowly pans up a seemingly endless spiral staircase filled with pretty girls as draperies are raised to expose more and more staircase. Then we finally reach the top with Virginia Bruce posed there. It's a giddy and spectacular sequence.

The ballet sequence featuring Harriet Hoctor is rather a bore. I'd rather have seen more of Fanny Brice. Brice is hilarious in the dressing-room with blonde Esther Muir. Powell and Rainer are really excellent in this film. Notable co-stars include Frank Morgan, Joseph Cawthorn, Herman Bing, Marcelle Corday, Nat Pendleton, Grace Hayle, Ernest Cossart, William Demarest, and Reginald Owen.

And while Brice appears as herself the Will Rogers and Eddie Cantor appearances are fakes. Virginia Bruce plays a character based on Lillian Lorraine, and Rosina Lawrence plays Marilyn Miller (here named Sally Manners).

An excellent film in the old style and worth the 3 hours it takes to watch it. Ziegfeld was a great showman and he deserved this fabulous tribute. He died in 1932, having given the world a number of major stars and great shows.

Long but well worth hanging in there for. Luise Rainer gives an outstanding well-deserved Oscar winning performance as Anna Held. The first half of the movie which covers the period of Ziegfeld's marriage to Held is the better half of the movie. Great re-enactment of stage Follies productions. 9 out of 10.

Like some huge, lumbering, Paleozoic beast with a heart, nothing like this film has existed in a long time. And I doubt that there will be anything like it again. "The Great Ziegfeld" is a grandiose, three hour, B&W cinematic opus that chronicles the true story (more or less) of the professional life of legendary producer/showman "Flo" Ziegfeld, played convincingly by William Powell. It is an interesting, lovable film because it is so historically ... quaint.

Structurally, the narrative takes a chronological approach. However, except for the film's starting year of 1893 and the ending soon after the 1929 stock market crash, no dates are given, a shortsighted flaw in the screenplay. But during this roughly forty-year period we see Ziggy's ambition unfurl into a successful career of producing some of the most extravagant musical shows in history. And throughout, the theme remains the same: to "glorify the American girl", that is to say to glorify the early twentieth century stereotyped image of the American girl.

Despite his success as a showman, Ziggy was constantly plagued with financial problems, and embroiled in relations with women, the two most important being: the humorously indecisive Anna Held, and the lovely Billie Burke.

More interesting to me than the biography is the lavish, grandiose production numbers. In the most grandiose of all, Dennis Morgan sings "A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody", as the camera ascends a slowly revolving spiral staircase adorned with "Ziegfeld girls" in outlandish costumes. The set, resembling a wedding cake, is about as tall as it is wide, with the stage curtain rising to what seems like stratospheric heights.

The film's strengths are its humorous script, the dazzling sets, the glamorous costumes, the music, a cameo appearance by Fanny Brice, and a great tap dance routine by Ray Bolger. My main complaint is the film's length. Also, I find it curious that this big budget beast with its theme of wealth and beauty came out right in the middle of the Great Depression. MGM must have been on a colossal ego trip.

Overall, "The Great Ziegfeld" is fun, and definitely worth watching, especially as a time capsule to an entertainment era that is gone forever.

Like its subject, this movie is interesting and generally entertaining, but often overblown. It's well worth seeing, although it could also have been whittled down by a good portion of its running time without losing anything important. It does present a believable and entertaining look at Ziegfeld's shows and personality, along with some good scenes and some good performances that keep it going.

William Powell was a pretty good choice to play Ziegfeld, since he has the knack of making a character eccentric and distinctive without having it come across as too forced or unnatural. And Myrna Loy is always a charming co-star, for Powell or anyone else. Yet it is Luise Rainer who delivers by far the most memorable performance - she makes her character temperamental but endearing, unpredictable but completely sympathetic. The best parts of the movie come when she is a big part of the action, and when her character slips into the background in the second half, the movie loses something. The rest of the large cast does get some good moments, and it's fun to see a couple of performers playing themselves, although some of them don't get nearly enough to do. The many production numbers contain some very good ones, but there are others that aren't worth the amount of time they were given, and that could have been cut down considerably without losing anything.

You can see why this impressed a lot of viewers in its time, and it's still pretty good entertainment. It could have been better, though, with a little more restraint. But then, its excesses are rather in keeping with its subject, and at any rate they don't keep it from being worth seeing.