Good start, but then it gets ruined

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The acting in this movie is really good.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

It will be harder for us in the 21st century to take a movie like "The Great Ziegfeld" seriously due to its over-the-top pomp and the occasional politically incorrect material (and a scene that comes across as pedophilic). I guess that Florenz Ziegfeld was more recognizable to audiences in the 1930s (or they wanted an escape from the Depression). Nonetheless, the movie does show how Flo was determined to make a name for himself in entertainment and did whatever he had to in order to become one of Broadway's biggest impresarios. Of course, I don't know how accurate the movie is.Probably the most famous scene is during the "Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody" number, as a spiral staircase gets slowly revealed, with people in all sorts of fancy outfits. The 1930s version of sensory overload.So I'd say that it's nothing special, but worth seeing. Certainly not the sort of movie that would get made nowadays.As for the cast. William Powell and Myrna Loy were of course most famous for the Thin Man series. Co-stars Frank Morgan (Billings) and Ray Bolger (himself) played the Wizard and Scarecrow, respectively, in "The Wizard of Oz" (and Loy's character Billie Burke played Glinda). Mae Questel (Rosie) voiced Betty Boop and also played Woody Allen's character's mom in "New York Stories" and Aunt Bethany in "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation". Fanny Brice was of course the subject of "Funny Girl".

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-

Winner of what we now call the Best Picture award, "The Great Ziegfeld" is a tribute to Florenz Ziegfield, Jr., the prolific promoter whose entire life might be summed up by the word "extravagant". The film was released in 1936, only four years after Ziegfeld's death, which might explain why there are some departures from truth.William Powell is Flo Ziegfeld (a role he would again embrace in 1945)--part Barnum, part Svengali, a man with big ideas and business acumen. The script paints him as a likable man and, to some extent, glosses over the womanizing aspect of his personality, though he is clearly a man who likes the ladies. Ziegfeld was an impresario who lived as lavishly as his productions, which were celebrations of excess and ostentation. One of the best aspects of the film is its depictions of entire stage numbers, featuring unique camera movements, complex stage machinations, and hundreds of performers. The choreography is fantastic and the costumes are beautiful. Louise Rainer portrays Ziegfeld's first wife--Anna Held--one of the stars he created. Much has been written about Rainer's performance, which won the Best Actress award, but has its detractors. She plays the French Anna very dramatically, rather Garbo-esquely.Myrna Loy pairs with William Powell (again) as his second wife, Billie Burke--a devoted wife who forges a successful film career when Flo's health falters. She wisely does not try to imitate Billie's unique voice and mannerisms.In between, he dallies with Audrey Dane (Virginia Bruce), a hateful and ambitious alcoholic. In real life, she was Lillian Lorraine, who remained a part of Ziegfeld's life for many years, if only in the shadows.The rest of the cast includes some entertainers portraying themselves (Will Rogers, Fanny Brice) and other noteworthy actors (William Demorest, Frank Morgan). There is so much talent, they practically have to shoe-horn the performances into the film, but somehow it all fits together well.Watch for the circus ballet number that features lead dancer Harriet Hoctor. It is literally a dog and pony show.Even though this film might diverge from reality, it captures the milieu of the late 20s and the 30s. It also includes plenty of entertainment. The parts that were edited out could probably make another entertaining film of their own.

The Broadway legends total a great many, and fans argue over who was responsible for the transition of the old fashioned entertainments of the 19th century into what is now known as musical comedy. Certainly the many song writers of this time (George M Cohan, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin) had some impact on the creation of the modern world of American musical theatre, but it really was one man who transform the New York theater into what remains to this day.Florenze was already a show man when he had the idea of taking his low class burlesque shows on to the mainstream on Broadway where operetta and serious dramas were the main source of entertainment. His Follies between 1907 and 1931 gave way too many elaborate imitators, but he did it first and according to legend, did it best.Ironically, it was one of the dream makers of Hollywood who saw the potential in Ziegfeld's story being taking to the screen. MGM Studios, under the run of Louis B. Mayer with his artistic partner Irving Thalberg, had the dream that MGM had more stars in the were in heaven, a theme that Ziegfeld may have felt. Ziegfeld himself had Will Rogers, Eddie Cantor, W.C. Fields and an all but now forgotten singer and dancer named Marilyn Miller as his leading lady. In the midst of all that, he found a funny looking Jewish girl named Fanny Brice and took her out of burlesque turning her into one of the most popular stars ever to cross the Broadway stage. Yes, that is the same Fanny Brice who was later portrayed by Barbra Streisand, so The Great Ziegfeld in a sense is a prequel to the classic stage and movie musical Funny Girl.But this is the Ziegfeld story, and to play him, MGM cast one of their top leading men, William Powell. It was too years after the success of The Thin Man so his leading lady, Myrna Loy, cast as Ziegfeld's second wife, Billie Burke. However, it is the actress playing his first wife, NFL, who got the attention and an Academy Award. That is Louise Rainer who had a brief run as a leading lady at MGM, winning to Academy Awards before leaving out of discontent. Rainer gives an excellent performance, although I debate her qualifications as leading actress for this film. Rainer is excellent in several things, particularly the one where after having discovering her husband's infidelity and later divorcing him, calls him to congratulate him about his second marriage.The bulk of the story focuses on his constant financial issues and this rivalry with fellow producer Frank Morgan who eventually becomes his closest supporter and keeps bailing him out. Then there are the musical numbers which would never fit on a Broadway stage. Still, these numbers are so elaborate and fantastic that I found myself tearing up in spite of having seen this a bunch of times. Of course, A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody is the most famous, but it's also difficult not to remember You Got to Pull Strings and You've Never Looked So Beautiful Before. In addition to Brice, Ray Bolger plays himself. An ironic moment has him telling Powell that he didn't have his heart in doing just props, an interesting look into the future when he turned down the opportunity to be the Tim Man and searched for a brain instead.The facts have been altered a little bit with Virginia Bruce's drunken chorus girl given a different name as well as the one based upon Marilyn Milker. Snippets of a few shows make it in bit you can't have everything. While this won the Oscar for Best Picture, I still think that Universal's Show Boat is better and practically flawless. Still, this is quite a triumph in its own way, and director Robert Z. Leonard would almost top it with a semi- sequel, Ziegfeld Girl that only mentions the great producer. Years later, Paul Henreid would play Ziegfeld in MGM's musical biography of Sigmund Romberg and Walter Pidgeon would argue with Streisand after she slipped a pillow into her costume in Funny Girl. Powell played Ziegfeld one more time, however, in 1945's elaborate version of what MGM thought the Follies would look like on screen.