Oscars Retrospective: The Great Ziegfeld (9th Academy Awards Review)
The Great Ziegfeld is the next in the long line of movies that we watch for this show that no one has ever heard of yet still won the Academy Award for Best Production. In true Oscar fashion, this Academy Award winner was beloved by the Academy when it first came out but as time has gone on, it’s been more or less forgotten about and now just remains a curious piece of history. Unlike a lot of later mediocre Oscar wins, however, this one also has the excuse of being a really old film to blame for its forgettability.
The Great Ziegfeld tells the life of Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. (William Powell), one of the most influential Broadway theater executives of all time who had the amazing penchant for making more money than God yet remaining perpetually broke for most of his adult life. Because as we’ve firmly established, if there’s one thing that people in show business love, it’s movies about people in show business. Have you ever heard of Show Boat? That was Ziegfeld. The movie tells of his life and his rise and fall and the shows he’s put on and the people he met along the way, mainly focusing on his show, Ziegfeld Follies.
In order to properly explain this movie, I do need to go into a little bit of detail on the real-life Ziegfeld as well. Besides being remembered for Show Boat, his other claim to fame were the Ziegfeld Follies which was a series of revues and shows that were a hit in their time. They were particularly known for their background dancers made up of gorgeously-dressed and oftentimes scantily-clad women of all ages and ethnicities. It was one of the first major pieces of pop culture made for the general public that made it okay for women to show off their bodies.
As you can imagine, this kind of background can cause a mire of controversy if it was done poorly, both back then and in today’s world, but, for the most part, the film actually does a good job at not making Ziegfeld into a sexist pig. He’s a charmer who loves women, loves show business and loves the crowds. It also helps that the women in the movie are genuinely interesting characters, as the movie dives into Ziegfeld’s relationships with both of his wives, Anna Held (Luise Rainer) and Billie Burke (Myrna Loy). If the name Billie Burke sounds familiar, that’s because she was also one of the most influential actresses on Broadway though you probably know her best as Glinda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz (1939).
When it comes to the characters, the movie is good though nothing too special. There’s a likable gallery of side-characters that we frequently get to know such as some of the background dancers, Ziegfeld’s first exhibit, Sendow (Nat Pendleton), and they even include a subplot about how Ziegfeld discovered Ray Bolger, another one of the biggest stars on Broadway back in the day although, once again, you know him from The Wizard of Oz (he was the Scarecrow). Interestingly, this is also the only character in the film who is played by his real-life counterpart.
Where this movie really shines are the musical numbers. As you can probably guess, The Great Ziegfeld is similar to The Broadway Melody (1929) or 42nd Street (1932) where it’s a backstage musical: the characters don’t sing and dance because they live in a world where singing and dancing is normal, they just work on Broadway so the musical numbers are the performances they put on. And let me tell ya, coming off of those movies, as well as the Astaire and Rogers musicals, the numbers in The Great Ziegfeld aren’t just good, they’re epic.
At the time, this was the most ambitious musical ever made. Even in the Astaire & Rogers musicals, they usually only had one giant musical number which was saved for the climax of the movie. Here, there’s probably 10 of those giant musical numbers. One of the song numbers alone cost about $220,000 dollars which would come out to about $4.7 million in today’s money. Not $4.7 million on the whole movie, $4.7 million on this one scene. During the middle of the Great Depression.
Whether you see it as a symbol of the decadence of the Golden Age of Hollywood or as an amazing spectacle that holds up today, there’s no denying that The Great Ziegfeld was a giant leap forward for musicals. Most other musical numbers at this time were usually just one character singing and dancing a bit. The Great Ziegfeld, however, has more in common with the epic musicals that would become a staple in the 50s and 60s. It basically does to musicals what King Kong (1933) did to special effects: none of this was necessarily impossible but it really pushed the envelope of how much could be done in a single movie.
In terms of the story itself, it’s good enough to tide you over between the musical numbers. The best part of this movie, aside from the songs, is the first hour or so before Ziegfeld becomes big. He’s the classic trickster and showman where he doesn’t have a penny to his name, yet he can convince everyone to follow him, join his production and give him cash for his shows. Even when he’s basically homeless, the confidence that he projects makes you believe what he’s selling. It’s great fun watching him become the biggest producer on Broadway with nothing to back him up but his words.
Once he actually becomes famous and the musical numbers begin is when the movie starts to fall apart which is weird considering how the musical numbers are what the movie was made for. When we see the first one or two, they’re amazing because we share in the character’s joy at finally seeing all of his hard work pay off. Even the third one. The problem is that almost the entire second hour of this movie is nothing but musical numbers.
The breaks between the numbers are practically nonexistent and usually just about Ziegfeld drumming up support for his next show, or his wife Anna going through some drama. While it is laying the groundwork for some more conflicts that appear near the end of the movie, it’s very sparsed out between the musical numbers. So when we do get to the point where we’re actually spending long amounts of time with the characters again, it feels very weird because it feels like it’s been such a while since we’ve actually seen them.
Also, while William Powell (below, left) is very likable as Ziegfeld, he looks practically nothing like the real Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. (below, center), aside from the mustache. That’s a personal pet peeve of mine when it comes to biopics as it makes it seem more like an actor’s vanity project rather than a passion project to tell the story of the biopic’s subject. Even more annoying is that it seems like an easy fix too: one of the main characters in the movie is Ziegfeld’s best friend/rival, Billings, played by Frank Morgan (below, right) who looks a lot closer to the real-life Ziegfeld.
There’s also some other issues with the film which I think may be because of the Hays Code and, thus, the filmmakers not being able to show some of the main character’s more scummy antics. For example, there’s a mention late in the film on how Ziegfeld is a womanizer but we never really see him actually cheat on his wife. I mean, the film does a good job with his character that it makes sense but because we don’t actually see him commit the mistake in question, it rings a bit hollow.
I feel like the King Kong comparison I made earlier is probably the best way of describing this movie. Similar to King Kong, The Great Ziegfeld really pushed the envelope in a major way when it comes to filmmaking: King Kong with special effects, The Great Ziegfeld with musical numbers. And both movies have the same problem in that they both pushed the envelope so far that they end up focusing way too much that the movie itself suffers.
Similar to how King Kong’s main issue was it spending too much time in the jungle that it just felt like it was dragging on, The Great Ziegfeld’s big issue is that it loves these musical numbers so damn much that you eventually forget that you’re supposed to be watching a movie about Ziegfeld. Though that does raise the question why King Kong is still considered a classic and one of the few movies from the 30s that most people have heard of while The Great Ziegfeld is largely forgotten.
I think the difference is partly that King Kong is a straight-up action-adventure movie with some mature themes and partly that King Kong is a movie that I think most people or even children can watch and get it and enjoy it. In addition, it also has a subtle environmental message that’s done in a way that few other movies at the time had done. It cautions against interfering too much with nature and the disastrous consequences that ensue.
The Great Ziegfeld, on the other hand, is a bit more of a mature story and character study and analyzing how one man’s art can change the world around him. This is a moral that we have seen many times since and usually done in better ways with movies such as Sullivan’s Travels (1941), Ed Wood (1994) and the like. While The Great Ziegfeld was the first movie to do this moral, it wasn’t the last and it didn’t do it exceptionally well. It’s not done bad, either, it’s just not that unique anymore.
Still, that’s just talking about how The Great Ziegfeld is today; when The Great Ziegfeld came out back then, it was MGM’s golden horse. The movie made a ton of money and, like I said, was a major step forward for the musical genre. It’s also pretty unique when it comes to biopics in that it’s dealing with a piece of history that was still incredibly recent at the time of its release.
This movie came out in 1936, while the real-life Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. died in 1931. The Oscars were already happening when Ziegfeld kicked the bucket. In fact, Ziegfeld’s influence on theater was so recent at the time of this movie, you can actually see his ripples on some of the movies we’ve already reviewed. That play at the end of 42nd Street is definitely reminiscent of Ziegfeld’s Follies.
All that having been said, I still think that this is a good movie. The musical numbers are great and I do like the main character. And, if nothing else, this film did introduce me to a pretty interesting historical figure who I would not have bothered researching otherwise so props there too. I just don’t think it has aged quite the best. It’s still enjoyable but we’ve seen this story done since and usually done better.
Still, with all that in mind, if you’re a fan of musicals or theater history, this is one of these old Oscar winners that you may want to check out. It’s not a bad movie, it just has some parts of it that kinda suck.
In case you missed it:
1st Academy Awards (1927/28): Wings/Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans: Part 1, Part 2
2nd Academy Awards (1928/29): The Broadway Melody: Part 1, Part 2
3rd Academy Awards (1929/30): All Quiet on the Western Front: Part 1, Part 2
4th Academy Awards (1930/31): Cimarron: Part 1, Part 2
5th Academy Awards (1931/32): Grand Hotel: Part 1, Part 2
6th Academy Awards (1932/33): Cavalcade: Part 1, Part 2
7th Academy Awards (1934): It Happened One Night: Part 1, Part 2
8th Academy Awards (1935): Mutiny on the Bounty: Part 1, Part 2
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