The Great Ziegfeld (1936)

Wonderful character development!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Good concept, poorly executed.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

I first saw this 3-hour movie on the big screen in the late 70s, and was happy to see it on a large screen. It won three impressive Oscars in 1936: Best Picture, Best Actress (Luise Rainer), and Best Dance Direction. It was also nominated for three more Oscars: Best Director (Robert Z Leonard), Best Writing (Original Story), Best Art Direction, and Best Film Editing. Luise Rainer won her first of two consecutive Oscars here and was the first performer ever to do this: her second Oscar was for The Good Earth (1937).Here, MGM paired William Powell with Myrna Loy in part of the 13 movies they made together in the 30s and 40s: Manhattan Melodrama (1934); The Thin Man (1934); Evelyn Prenice (1934); The Great Ziegfeld (1936); Libeled Lady (1936); After the Thin Man (1936); Double Wedding (1937); Another Thin Man (1939); I Love You Again (1940); Love Crazy (1941); Shadow of the Thin Man (1941); The Thin Man Goes Home (1945); and Song of the Thin Man (1947). Although The Great Ziegfeld is only a fairly routine biopic of Flo Ziegfeld from the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 until his death in 1932, the movie is spectacular for his sets, decoration and starring cast, including appearances by some of his own stars: Fanny Brice, Harriet Hoctor, and Ray Bolger. One wonders why Eddie Cantor (played by Buddy Doyle) did not appear as himself in this movie. Will Rodgers (played by A.A. Trimble) had died in that small plane crash in 1935 before this movie was made. To our great fortune, this movie was made fairly soon after Ziegfeld's death when there were people who could still remember the Ziegfeld Follies with their lavish stairs, songs, and above all, his beautiful girls!! This movie is in black and white, but one can get an idea of what it might have been like in color from watching Funny Girl (1968).The movie opens with Flo Ziegfeld (William Powell) and his friend/rival Jack Billings (Frank Morgan) competing with each for attention to their respective attractions at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. Ziegie's big attraction is Sandow the Strongman (Nat Pendleton) while Billings was a belly dancer, Little Egypt. Later, while in Europe, Ziegfeld bests Billings out of signing the French singer Anna Held (Luise Rainer) to a contract and then marries her. Later, after starting the Follies and having trouble with one of its stars, Audrey Dane (Virginia Bruce), Anna oversees the troublesome Audry kissing Flo while drunk and mistakes her drunken kiss for a real kiss. Anna then files for divorce. Flo's second wife is Billie Burke (played by Myrna Loy) to whom he is married for the rest of his life. Zeigfeld goes on to produce and promote several shows and reviews on Broadway, often with other people's money. Near the end of the movie, while overhearing four men in a barbershop saying that "Zeigfeld is all washed up," he promises to make four Broadway successes within a year and have them all playing at the same time. After making good on his bet, he hires private investigators to find the four original men and gives them all box ticket seats to all of his four plays. The four musical successes all played on Broadway at the same time—The Three Musketeers, Showboat, Rio Rita, and Whopee!

This biography follows the ups and downs of Florenz Ziegfeld (William Powell), famed producer of extravagant stage revues.For some reason, this film is epic, with a long overture and an extended running time. This is completely pointless, and it would probably be more enjoyable if they cut the fat and got this down to a reasonable length. What hurts it ever more today (2015) is that few people anymore even know who Ziegfeld was.I do not want to be too harsh on the movie, because William Powell is excellent (as always) and part of it is shot by the world's greatest cinematographer, Karl Freund. But really, I cannot see this being a lost classic or anything of the sort.

During the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, sideshow barker Flo Ziegfeld Jr. (William Powell) struggles to promote strong man Eugen Sandow. He beats his rival Billings by smart marketing on Sandow. It's the start of his long career of promoting vaudeville acts as he gains success and loses big over and over again. His first wife is French star Anna Held (Luise Rainer) who he signed stealing away from Billings. She gains publicity with Flo sending 20 gallons of milk for a fictional beauty treatment everyday. His next star is the alcoholic Audrey Dane who breaks up his marriage. Borrowing from Billings again, he produces a new show with Broadway star Billie Burke (Myrna Loy) and later marrying her and having daughter Patricia.This is a long giant Hollywood extravaganza to proclaim its love of Ziegfeld. It has all the lavish production that such a thing entails. It can get long-winded at 3 hours but it's not a small life. In fact, it fits the man to have a long big production. It does bring out the up and down life of a vaudeville hustler and the old idea that bigger is always better. It's the perfect big production for the producer who loves big production. William Powell does a fine impresario of hucksterism and imagine making.

The nominees for the 1937 Best Picture Oscar included some of the greatest movies ever made: Dodsworth, A Tale of Two Cities, The Story of Louis Pasteur, and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Libeled Lady, San Francisco, and Romeo and Juliet (with Norma Schearer) were unequal but often good as well. And yet, the winner of that year's Best Picture award was The Great Ziegfeld, an undistinguished melodrama. Yes, in the middle, when they reproduce a Ziegfeld show, there are some impressive staged numbers, of which the best is definitely "A Pretty Girl is like a Melody," which just keeps building and building. But the rest of this movie is a long and undistinguished melodrama. How did it win the Oscar? And how, oh how, did Louise Rainer get the Oscar for Best Actress??? That I truly do not understand. Her very artificial performance pales into obscurity against some of the other nominees, like Irene Dunne in "Theodora Goes Wild," or Carole Lombard in "My Man Godfey" - or Ruth Chatterton in "Dodsworth." If you can catch the musical numbers and skip the rest, you'll get the uneven best this movie has to offer, and miss what is largely not worth bothering with.