The Ziegfeld Follies (1946)

(This post is part of The Great Ziegfeld Blogathon hosted by Hollywood Genes)

There can be no doubt that Flo Ziegfeld Jr. was one of the great showmen of the 20th Century. He was well known for his Follies, a series of spectacular revues that were staged from 1907 to 1931. In addition to the Ziegfeld Follies, he was also responsible for such shows as Sally, Rio Rita, and Show Boat. Despite his success, Flo Ziegfeld lost a good deal of money in the stock market crash of 1929. When he died in 1932 at age 65 from pleurisy, he was deeply in debt. In order to pay off these debts, in 1933 that his widow, actress Billie Burke (now best known as Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz) sold the film rights to his life story to Universal Pictures. As it turned out, production of The Great Ziegfeld proved too expensive for Universal, who then sold the production, lock, stock, and barrel, to MGM. The Great Ziegfeld proved to be a huge success for MGM. In fact, it was the top film at the box office in 1936. It also won the Oscar for Best Picture. Of course, such success meant that there would be sequels.

The first sequel would not feature the character of Flo Ziegfeld Jr. at all. Instead, Ziegfeld Girl (1941) centred on three young women (played by Hedy Lamarr, Judy Garland, and Lana Turner), who become Ziegfeld girls. Like The Great Ziegfeld, it used some of the numbers from the actual Ziegfeld Follies. The third and final sequel was Ziegfeld Follies (1946). In Ziegfeld Follies, Flo Ziegfeld (William Powell reprising his role from the first film) in Heaven imagines the Follies he could produce if he had MGM's roster of stars. Like the actual Ziegfeld Follies, then, the movie is a revue of unrelated comedy sketches and musical numbers. While the first two movies featured sequences that had originated with the Ziegfeld Follies, Ziegfeld Follies utilized primarily original material. Ultimately, it would be one of the most lavish and most expensive movies ever mounted by MGM.

In fact, it appears that plans were being made for Ziegfeld Follies even before the second sequel, Ziegfeld Girl, was released. In July 1939 E. Y. Yarburg and Jack McGowan submitted outlines for the movie, according to material from the Arthur Freed Collection at at the USC Cinema/Television Library. According to an article in The Hollywood Reporter from April 1943, producer Arthur Freed had begun preparations for a film that would be a Technicolor tribute to Flo Ziegfeld. Not only would a good deal of work go into Ziegfeld Follies, but that work would be performed by a veritable army of personnel. There would be thirty writers on the film (only five of which are credited), more than twenty credited performers (and many, many more uncredited) in the film, and a whole legion of composers, choreographers, and arrangers who worked on it. Ultimately, Ziegfeld Follies  would be directed by seven different men. It should prove no surprise that Ziegfeld Follies was an expensive movie to make. It ultimately cost a then staggering $3.2 million.

Shooting on Ziegfeld Follies would take place from April 10 1944 to August 18 1944, with additional shooting occurring on December 22 1944 and between January 25 and February 6 1945. While shooting had ended, Ziegfeld Follies would require an enormous amount of editing, so much so that it would not be released until 1946. Not only would the running order of the various sequences in the film be changed and changed again, several numbers would be cut from the film and then some of those numbers would be restored. Originally clocking in at 273 minutes, Ziegfeld Follies would only be 110 minutes upon its release. 

Given the amount of time it took to make and the sheer amount of money it took to make, Ziegfeld Follies was an enormous gamble for MGM. And unfortunately for the studio, it was not a gamble that paid off. Ziegfeld Follies earned $3,569,000 in the United States and Canada, and $1,775,000 outside those countries. While these are very respectable amounts, the enormous cost of Ziegfeld Follies meant that it lost $290,000 at the box office.

While Ziegfeld Follies failed at the box office in 1946, it offered audiences a chance to see nearly every major MGM star in one film and it remains beloved by fans of classic MGM musicals because of that today. As mentioned earlier, only one number was actually taken from the Ziegfeld Follies: "A Sweepstakes Ticket" featuring Fanny Brice (who also happened to be the only star to appear in the actual Follies). In "A Sweepstakes Ticket," Miss Brice played a woman whose husband had given their winning Irish Sweepstakes ticket to their landlord. The skit also featured Hume Cronyn as Miss Brice's husband and William Frawley as the landlord.

While none of the other sequences originated with the actual Ziegfeld Follies, many of them were impressive nonetheless. "The Babbit and the Bromide" would mark the first time that Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly danced together (they danced together again briefly in That's Entertainment, Part II). The comedy sketch "When Television Comes" featured Red Skelton as a television commercial spokesman hawking "Guzzler's Gin," who gets progressively more drunk with each commercial. "The Great Lady Has An Interview" featured Judy Garland as a prestige movie star who has won Oscars, but longs to play sexy roles. 

One of the longer and certainly the most bizarre numbers is "Here's To The Girls/"Bring On the Wonderful Men." "Here's to the Girls" is sung by Fred Astaire and features a dance solo by Cyd Charisse. It is following Miss Charisse's solo that the number takes a turn towards the outré. Quite simply, we get to see Lucille Ball,,  clad in pink and cracking a whip towards a group of chorus girls dressed as panthers. It then shifts to Virginia O'Brien, singing the song "Bring On the Wonderful Men."

The longest and among the most impressive of the sequences is also one that could prove to be problematic for most modern viewers. "Limehouse Blues" features Fred Astaire as a poor Chinese labourer and Lucille Bremer as his love interest. While beautifully staged and beautifully performed, the fact remains that it is a prime example of yellowface during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

 Because of its very nature as a revue of unrelated sequences, directed by several different people at that, Ziegfeld Follies is uneven, with some sequences playing better than others. That having been said, it certainly has the most impressive cast of any MGM film, featuring Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, Fanny Brice, Cyd Charisse, Judy Garland, Kathryn Grayson, Lena Horne, Gene Kelly, Virginian O'Brien, and Esther Williams, among many, many others. It is also a sumptuous looking film, quite possibly the biggest spectacle ever staged by MGM. While it did poorly at the box office on its first release, it remains one of the best ways classic movie buffs can see the many stars in the MGM firmament during the Golden Age.