ZIEGFELD FOLLIES
US, 1946, 110 minutes, Colour.
Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, Lucille Bremer, Fanny Brice, Judy Garland, Kathryn Grayson, Gene Kelly, Lena Horne, Victor Moore, Red Skelton, Esther Williams, William Powell, Cyd Charisse, Hume Cronyn.
Directed by Lemuel Ayres, Roy del Ruth, Robert Lewis, Eugene Loring, Vincente Minnelli, George Sidney, Charles Walters, Norman Taurog.
The Ziegfeld Follies was a great success in its time. It was made over a period of two years and eventually released after World War Il.
The Ziegfeld Follies have made their mark in the history of Broadway lavish entertainment, burlesque made respectable and glamorous. Many stars, including Will Rogers and Fanny Brice, graced the Ziegfeld Follies with their humour and talent.
Ziegfeld has featured in quite a number of films especially his lavish biography of 1936, The Great Ziegfeld, with William Powell. Walter Pidgeon portrayed him in Funny Girl. There have been also television biographies of the
entrepreneur.
William Powell takes up his role from The Great Ziegfeld in introducing this film. The production was by
Arthur Freed, who was to make such original musicals as On The Town, Singin' In The Rain, An American In Paris, The Bandwagon.
Vincente Minnelli had started a successful career directing musicals and had reached a peak with Meet Me In St Louis. Later successes were to include The Pirate, An American In Paris, The Bandwagon and the Oscar-winning Gigi. Minelli was also to make quite a number of heightened melodramas, Undercurrent, The Bad And The Beautiful, Lust For Life, The Cobweb, Some Came Running, etc. This film is interesting in seeing him in his early career. The material is very mixed.
1. Some good dance sequences and some very, very dated comedy. It is probably the equivalent of a contemporary T.V. special.
1. The introduction of Ziegfeld in heaven - the puppets illustrating the variety of acts in his follies.
2. The introduction of Fred Astaire and his dancing, especially with Cyd Charisse leading the dancers?
3. Lucille Ball and a rather camp seeming routine with Lucille Ball on horseback with whips and leopard women?
4. Virginia O'Brien and her straight-faced singing of Bring On The Men?
5. Esther Williams and a water ballet?
6. Keenan Wynn in, what seems now a very unfunny sketch, Number Please, directed by Robert Lewis and with Grady Sutton?
7. An excerpt from La Traviata with singers James Merton and Marion Bell?
8. Another moderately funny sketch Pay The Two Dollars with Victor Moore and Edward Arnold?
9. This Heart Of Mine danced by Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer one of the highlights of the film?
10. A sketch called A Sweepstakes Ticket with Fanny Brice, Hume Cronyn, William Frawley? It was directed by Roy Del Ruth. It offers the rare opportunity for audiences to see Fanny Brice and Barbra Streisand immortalized an Funny Girl.
11. Lena Horne singing Love, directed by Lemuel Ayers?
12. A dated sketch calls When Television Comes, directed by George Sidney with Red Skelton doing his usual routines?
13. Limehouse Blues danced by Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer - given the full Minelli treatment and excellently presented?
14. A sketch with song and dance: A Great Lady Has An Interview? Judy Garland mimics the celebrities of the time (of the Tallulah Bankhead style), choreographed by Charles Waters, much of it done in single takes.
15. A highlight with Fred Astaire dancing with Gene Kelly in the Gershwin's The Babbit And The Bromide. (Astaire and Kelly were to comment on this in their introductions to That's Entertainment, part 2, 1975).
16. Kathryn Grayson singing Beauty Is Everywhere as a finale and the same Minnelli garish decor, sets and colours? An odd ending for a very mixed film highlighting M.G.M's musical style?
