The Great Ziegfeld (1936)

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Oh my goodness what a boring film."The Great Ziegfeld" is one of the most dramatically inert movies I've ever seen. It tells the story of Florence Ziegfeld and the creation of the Ziegfeld Follies, but it feels more like an excuse to stage elaborate (and long) musical numbers that feature chorus girls posing in garish gowns. Watching these examples of the kinds of entertainment that were popular at the time, it's almost inconceivable to me that anyone would have wanted to pay money to see them.What drama there is in the film comes from the relationship between Ziegfeld and his put-upon wife, Anna Held, played by Luise Rainer. William Powell plays Ziegfeld like William Powell, and he's as easy to watch on screen as he always is, but if the film has any assets at all, it's Rainer. She does what she can to make something of her role and the movie, and it's a shame that her part is so small. She disappears for long stretches altogether. Myrna Loy, top billed but not showing up until there's only about 30 minutes left in the movie, makes absolutely no attempt to look or sound like Billie Burke, Ziegfeld's second wife. This one is a struggle to get through -- the film is so lacking in any forward momentum I was afraid at times that it would just grind to a halt completely.This terrible film managed to be named Best Picture at the 1936 Academy Awards. It's surely one of the worst films to ever win the top prize. It also scored a Best Actress award for Rainer, who I guess deserved it for giving the audience something, anything, interesting to watch. Its third Oscar went to Seymour Felix, who provided the choreography for the "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody" number, an interminable, vertigo-inducing one that features a bunch of elaborately-costumed women spinning around on a giant cake. The film was also nominated for Best Director (hah!), Best Original Story (hah!), Best Art Direction, and Best Film Editing. Yeah, like I couldn't have found anything to edit out of this 3 hour snoozer.Grade: D-

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 movie follows the career of the famous showman/ swindler Florenz Ziegfield. Ziegfield is a very likable swindler, however, and William Powell plays him magnificently. The Ziegfield character could easily be detestable in the hands of another actor (as I suspect the real Ziegfield was).The movie may be a "valentine" to an extremely powerful producer, but it is still entertaining fare today, provided the viewer: a) is a fan of old movies (unlike me); b) is a fan of movie musicals (unlike me); and c) is a fan of big production numbers, even those shot in "glorious black & white" (unlike me).

Knowing several people, on and outside of IMDb, who consider The Great Ziegfeld one of the weakest Best Picture winners, that didn't stop me from seeing it anyway. To me though, while it's not flawless and not the best film of the year it was still incredibly well-made and entertaining stuff and from personal view it is nowhere near one of the worst Best Picture winners.The Great Ziegfeld agreed is overlong with a draggy and at times uneventful first half and half an hour could easily have been trimmed. And more could have done with the relationship between Ziegfeld and Billie Burke which appeared late in the film and didn't feel developed enough, almost like an afterthought.However, The Great Ziegfeld is very lavishly mounted, with photography that's both beautiful and clever, sumptuous costume design and some of the most handsomely gorgeous sets of any 30s musical. Other pleasures are the marvellous and very well-staged(without being too overblown) songs with A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody being an absolute show-stopper, a script peppered with humour and heart and the mostly poignant story. Standout scenes were Fanny Brice's charming My Man, Ray Bolger's witty dancing to My Follies Girl, Luise Rainer's heart-breaking telephone(justifiably famous) and especially A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody with its clever photography and perhaps one of the best uses of a staircase in a film. The direction is adept and the performances are great, with William Powell suave personified and especially Luise Rainer who is the epitome of charm and grace, capable of a good range of emotions as seen in the telephone scene. Fanny Brice, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger are all memorable, while Myrna Loy is underused she's hardly wasted either.Overall, a well-made, entertaining and very good film and well worth the look. 8/10 Bethany Cox