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Ziegfeld Follies

Charlotte Kendall | Bay City, MI | 01/28/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This movie is more of an excuse to put all of MGM's stars into one movie. The movie is set up like it was a real Ziegfeld show. It has no plot, it's just a show with some variety acts from singing, to dancing and some comedy acts! William Powell is Ziegfeld and he is watching the show from Heaven. Anyway the acts include:



Here's to the Girls- Fred Astaire sing this number and it is danced by Cyd Charisse and Fred Astaire. This a big production number with a chorus. Lucille Ball is in this number too. Virgina O'Brien appears right after this number and sings.



A Water Ballet- Esther Williams does what she does best, swims!



Number Please- This is a comedy skit with Keenan Wynn.



Traviata- A opera number with James Melton and Marion Bell.



Pay the Two Dollars- Another comedy skit with Victor Moore and Edward Arnold.



This Heart of Mine- Fred Astaire sings this number and dances with Lucille Bremer. A personal favorite.



A Sweepstakes Ticket- Another comedy skit with Fanny Brice, Hume Cronyn and William Frawley (Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy).



Love- The lovely Lena Horne sing this song. Another personal favorite!



When Television Comes- A comedy skit with Red Skelton.



Limehouse Blues- A dance number with Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer with a chorus. A very strange number in my opinion.



A Great Lady Has "An Interview"- A musical number with the great Judy Garland. Another favorite!



The Babbitt and the Bromide- Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly dance in this number. My favorite number in the whole movie!



Beauty- The lovely Kathryn Grayson sings this number. Also a chorus of girls. Cyd Charisse is the featured dancer in the bubbles.



As for DVD extras,



New featurette Ziegfeld Follies: An Embarrassment of Riches

Vintage MGM Crime Does Not Pay short The Luckiest Guy in the World

2 classic MGM cartoons:

The Hick Chick

Solid Serenade

Audio-only bonus: outtake songs If Swing Goes, I Go Too, This Heart of Mine and We Will Meet Again in Honolulu

Ziegfeld movies trailer gallery

Both remixed Dolby Surround Stereo and original Mono English Audio

Subtitles: English, Français & Español (feature film only)



Overall this movie is alright but if you love the MGM musicals I say give it a try. It's a very interesting movie."

Welcome to "The Ziegfeld Follies"!

Sean Orlosky | Yorktown, IN United States | 08/15/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This film has no plot at all, and it's wonderful. Sounds strange, doesn't it? Well, this is a movie that is just meant as effervescent, entertaining showmanship. The film opens in Heaven, where Florenz Ziegfeld dreams of who would have starred in his 1944 Ziegfeld Follies. The next two hours is Ziegfeld's dream unravelling as MGM's top talents perform wonderful, stagy production numbers and sketches: Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly (in their ONLY film appearance together!) perform a great tap dance number to "The Babbit and the Bromide". In one great comedy sketch, Fanny Brice is hilarious as a frumpy housewife who has just won "A Sweepstakes Ticket"... which she gave to her landlord (a pre- "I Love Lucy" William Frawley). Speaking of Lucy, you'll also find her here, more glamorous than ever, cracking a whip in the film's opening number. Esther Williams performs a water ballet, and Red Skelton shines in a great comedy sketch when he becomes drunk advertising for a product called "Guzzler's Gin". However, my favorite number is called "A Great Lady Gives An Interview", which stars Judy Garland as a suspiciously Greer Garson-accented "star" giving a ridiculous interview to a group of reporters. This witty, hilarious number will delight all fans of Garland, as it showcases her singing, dancing, and comedy abilities. That's what I love most about this film. Everybody is at the top of their form, and if they could do anything, name it: singing, dancing, acting, comedy, drama, they do it here. Although a few numbers are just a tad accentuated, this film is worth seeing and taking delight in any time. Bring on Metro's best: Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Fanny Brice, Lucille Ball, Fanny Brice, Esther Williams, Keenan Wynn, Kathryn Grayson, Red Skelton... a great movie, worth seeing again and again."

A Drop-Dead Gorgeous Show For The Serious Musical Fan

Gary F. Taylor | Biloxi, MS USA | 08/20/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Ziegfeld Follies were legendary stage shows that consisted entirely of musical numbers and comedy routines performed by some of the greatest stars of the day. When sound began to roar in the late 1920s, the movie studios followed the Ziegfeld form and quickly produced a series of films that were variety-show in nature. But the musical review is a form that really works best on stage before a live audience: in short order the movie-going public turned its back on the style in favor of musicals that offered increasingly complex, sophisticated, and sometimes unexpectedly dark stories.



In the 1940s MGM, famous for its musicals, unexpectedly decided to revive the form--and to do so in the style of producer Florenz Ziegfeld. The result was an outrageous budget that would have made Ziegfeld himself blanch, a wave of imaginative visuals that could have never been crammed onto even the biggest Broadway stage, a host of legendary performers, and the occasional comedy routine for relief from the sheer spectacle of it all.



The big hurdle for modern audiences is the fact that we have become accustomed to variety shows through television; they no longer have a unique appeal and it is difficult for us to sit through two hours of it. Even so, most musical fans will probably find ZIEGFELD FOLLIES worth the effort; although it has a few weak spots, it is easily one of the most visually stunning flights of fancy ever put on the screen.



The weakest links in the chain are the comedy routines, all of which seem insubstantial at best, slightly clunky at worst; still, they are amusing in an old-fashioned sort of way and it is always a pleasure to see the legendary Fannie Brice, no matter how inconsequential the script may be. Fortunately, the film weighs in heavily on the musical side, and while the actual material may be a bit weak at times the look of the thing is absolutely eye-popping.



The opening number is nothing short of stunning: Fred Astaire introduces a riot in pink and black that includes a spinning Cyd Charisse, a turning merry-go-round with real white horses, and a formidable Lucille Ball keeping a host of leopard-like women in check with a whip! Truly, musicals are the most surreal of all performing arts genres, but this seems to stretch the boundaries quite a bit.



The film is filled with notable performers. Virginia O'Brien, the great comic singer, dismisses the ladies in favor of the men--indeed, it seems, almost any man will do. Esther Williams swirls elegantly in front of lavish underwater sets. James Melton and Marion Bell offer memorable performances of the most famous duet from LA TRAVIATA in a memorably designed setting. Katherine Grayson is surrounded by some truly unexpected sets, walls of bubbles, and gold-clad bathing beauties. Certainly no one can complain that there is nothing to see on the screen!



Along the way we also have some truly legendary moments, chief among them two amazingly beautiful dance numbers performed by Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer. The first, "This Heart of Mine," finds Astaire playing a jewel thief bent upon seducing Bremer at a ball: red and white with elaborate costumes, hidden treadmills, and decoratively turning platforms, it is both clever and very elegant. Even so, "Limehouse Blues" is finer still, introducing a mysterious Chinatown--and then suddenly bursting into a fantasia of white and blue and red as Astaire and Bremer dance out a love story that never was and never could ever be.



The film also offers two of MGM's most celebrated singing stars. During her MGM career Lena Horne was typically saddled with excessive movement and frequently peculiar costumes--but both actually work to her advantage here, and her performance of "Love" has tremendous tropical sizzle, to say the least. It may be a bit more difficult for modern viewers to know how to react to Judy Garland's "The Interview," for its references are lost; not only is it very much an industry insider joke, it is very much a take-off on "serious" actresses of the time who specialized in playing biographical roles, with Greer Garson a very specific target. Still, Garland nails it as only Garland can, and that says a great deal indeed.



The film also contains a true rarity: the only serious pairing of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, who lightly send up rumors of their rivalry--and then proceed to demonstrate just how truly competitive they could be in some of the finest choreography ever put on the screen. "The Babbit and the Bromide" is truly a remarkable thing to behold; you are constantly torn in your attention between the two men, each with very different styles and yet each truly incomparable.



In spite of its array of stars and remarkable visuals, ZIEGFELD FOLLIES was not among MGM's box-office knockouts of the 1940s and it was rarely seen after its original theatrical release. It is presently available only in VHS, and although the print is good it isn't the best possible--and since the visual spectacle is a prime reason for seeing the show you may want to hold out (and cross your fingers) for a full restoration on DVD. On the other hand, the out-of-print but still available VHS package does include the soundtrack on CD, which is a very strong plus.



Final thought on the film: unless you are a serious fan of MGM musicals you may want to skip this one, but if you are willing to make the act of acceptance the film requires you'll find ZIEGFELD FOLLIES a drop-dead gorgeous show.



GFT, Amazon Reviewer"