Ziegfeld Girl
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Movie Reviews of Ziegfeld Girl
Movie Review: WONDERFUL MUSICAL-DRAMA
Summary: 5 Stars
.. with an all-star cast. The plot is not new(Stage Door, How to Marry a Millionaire and Valley of the Dolls to mention but a few), but Judy, Hedy and Lana do an admirable job. Never mind highbrow critcs; Hedy Lamarr wasn`t THAT bad and Lana does one of her best acting jobs ever. Judy is a tomboy and it`s sad that life eventually took her into the direction of Lana`s character Sheila.
The musical numbers are good, but sadly; footage from THE GREAT ZIEGFELD are edited in(note the finale). James Stewart are good as well - as are Edvard Everett Horton, Charles Winninger and Eve Arden. The film is filled with good 1-liners and there are even echoes of Garbo`s first sound-entrance in ANNA CHRISTIE.
Movie Review: Ziegfeld Girl
Summary: 5 Stars
Great Music. I was thrilled to see the musical dance number 'Minnie from Trinidad'. I have been looking for it for years. It's great you made it available on DVD.Movie Review: awesome film!!
Summary: 5 Stars
this film shows the true grandeur of Hollywood in the 1940s and how glamorous women were. This is truly one of the greatest Judy Garland musical films ever.Movie Review: Four Stars For The Four Stars.
Summary: 4 Stars
How did it take me three days to plod through this film, considering it was produced by Pandro S. Berman, directed musically by Busby Berkeley, and starred Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr, Lana Turner, and Jimmy Stewart? This film had all the ingredients for being a huge success, but it just didn't quite make it. It is definately worth seeing as a piece of classic Hollywood history, but, the story drags, and the musical numbers range, in my opinion, from acceptable to pretty bad. There's a reason why you almost never see clips from this film in retrospectives of Hollywood musicals. Even the great Judy, albeit always charming, comes off as somewhat lackluster in her numbers, though she injects them all with her trademark energy. I found the musical number "Minnie From Trinidad" particularly bad....everyone seems to be doing a dress rehearsal at best, and for the first time in one of her films I could tell Judy was singing to a pre-recorded track. Still, she is adorable as one of the gals with stars in her eyes, and retains the persona of her two years earlier role of Dorothy in "The Wizard Of Oz." Lana Turner, Judy's Little Red School House chum from the MGM lot, is surprisingly effective as the sexy blonde showgirl with a fatal ambition. Never wanting to return to her lower class squalor, she "dates" many men, accepting fabulous jewels, a Park Ave. apartment, and, at last count, six furs, for her "company", the '40s reference for whoredom. Bad girls, even those with a heart of gold, always got punished way back when, and Lana's showgirl, the former elevator girl, is back on for a ride straight down. I had never seen too many of Lana's earlier roles, being more familiar with her '50s melodramas, such as "Imitation Of Life" and "Madame X", where she definately projected a mature quality. I was very impressed with her role here. She had a natural ability for one so early in her career. Tennessee Williams, before his own fame, was once assigned to write a screenplay for her, and commented that she couldn't act her way out of her brassiere. I feel this was an unfair assessment of her skills. She's darn good! Fellow Little Red School House alumni Jackie Cooper plays Lana's kid brother, and there is a very humorous moment when he saunters for their mom in imitation of Lana's performance of the night before, and mom says "I hope I didn't raise my son to be a showgirl" with such gay inference that it should have been included in "The Celluloid Closet." Jimmy Stewart is Jimmy Stewart, which is to say he is totally believable as Lana's true love. Hedy Lamarr, as the third showgirl, has no ambitions other than to get she and her husband out of debt. As porcelein and perfect as a Dresden doll, she shows just about as much acting range. Hedy was one of Hollywood's all-time beauties, and her image in this film is no exception. But, I wouldn't consider her the world's greatest actress. In her scenes with the even more wooden actor who plays her violinist husband, "Franz", their interaction, both replete with discernible European accents, comes off as very dated and almost amateur. Hedy, who was no dummy, once commented that "any girl can look glamorous, all you have to do is stand still and look stupid." She knew wherein her own strengths lie, and it is when she is immobile that her screen power shines. She is unbelievably gorgeous, and in scenes such as the one here where she is framed by giant orchids, well...that image alone is worth a chapter in any book on the history of Hollywood. Busby Berkeley was Hollywood's most famous stage/musical director. Though his sets and numbers here have all the elaborate, over-sized qualities that are identified with his style, and are visually impressive, the music accompanying them just wasn't that memorable. And seeing Judy Garland in her last musical number here was not my favorite Garland moment in a film. Sitting atop the revolving, showgirl laden Berkeley monument, dressed in attire and wig which make her look amazingly and unflatteringly similar to Marie Antoinette, she also looks very uncomfortable and almost ridiculous. Costumes in this film were designed by the famous contract designer, Adrian. These are quite possibly some of the most elaborate, detailed costumes ever in a film, and they range from breathtakingly gorgeous to so over-the-top as to make a drag queen blush. Though this all may seem like too many negatives to make this viewable, the star power and, most of all, the visual power of this film make it more than worthwhile. Add to it the great cast of character actors, most of whose names would be familiar to only film buffs, and, Eve Arden with her trademark dead-pan cynicism and best - gal friend humor, and it all combines to make this, if far from a perfect movie, a movie well worth seeing anyway. My final impression?: "Hooray For Hollywood!"Movie Review: Rainbows, Dreams and Staircases
Summary: 4 Stars
When MGM produced this lavish musical in 1940-41, most of the world was at war and the U.S. was on the verge of joining it. Austerity was already being called for in the U.S.A., and Hollywood was doing its part. The studios at that time were closely allied with the federal government which saw movies as a tool for democracy rather than the way Hollywood is treated by government today.
That austerity measure is the primary reason this great musical feast was produced in the less-expensive, always-acceptable (and, at the time, "the norm") black-and-white rather than as a fantastic Technicolor feast. Musicals did not YET rule the lot of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer although they would, soon enough, keep that studio in the black.
Nevertheless, this movie is one of the most beautiful black-and-white musicals ever produced. As Leonard Maltin has said in his TV book of movie reviews, the MGM glitter has never shined more brightly.
Among the most notable things about this film is that it was a turning point in the career of Judy Garland. Here, for the first time, Judy goes from being a young girl living at home with her father to becoming an independent young woman who becomes a star of the Ziegfeld follies. From child to grownup in one movie. And that turning point hinged on the improbably set-up presentation of her singing audition in which her pop had her ham up "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" and, in a second chance, using her own gut instincts to sing the song better than anyone had sung it before...and better than anyone has sung it since.
Lana Turner was not yet a major MGM star, but she became one with this film in which she was given the full glamour treatment. She has a very meaty part as a beauty who gets her shot in the Ziegfeld follies. She has Jimmy Stewart (who was a star in his own right) as a ne'er-do-well boyfriend who she drops when rich men start paying attention to her. Along the way on her path to fame and infamy, she encounters an impossibly young, incredibly handsome Dan Dailey, who portrays a fighter. In the film, he wins a boxing title in a match that Lana sees with one of her rich boyfriends. When Dailey encounters Turner in a night spot, he comes on to her. Sizing her up and letting her know who he is, he tells her, "Ya seen me when I done it." Once she realizes what he means, she agrees she was there, and then gives him the brush-off. Later in the film, when they're both on the skids, he runs into her in a dive. He offers to buy her a drink and reminds her of who he is. He then treats her badly. It's a terrific scene between them, and it's a terrible character for the young Dailey to have played, but it was a standout.
Happily, though, Turner got one of the best scenes any actress has had in a career. And it is, allegedly, a scene that MGM's resident musical genius (the true talent in the Freed Unit) Roger Edens wrote specifically for her while the film was shooting because it was felt her character needed a little something more dramatic. In this scene, the mortally ill Lana goes to the Ziegfeld Theater to see a revue of previous Ziegfeld triumphs. Growing visibly sicker as she watches the show, she gets up to leave. As she reaches the top of the balcony staircase, the theater orchestra starts playing "You Stepped Out of A Dream", which was the big number in her first Ziegfeld hit. Per Edens' instruction, Turner threw back her shoulders, lifted her chin, and began descending the stairs as a Ziegfeld girl would do it on stage. After a few steps, she collapses. It's one HELL of a scene and Turner delivers it in spades.
This film IS a great musical wallow. Tony Martin was a perfect leading man in this film. "You Stepped Out of a Dream" is one of the great "show girl" anthems of all time. His voice was terrific and he wooed the impossibly beautiful Hedy Lamarr onstage and off. Lamarr brought that beauty to her role, if little else, although she portrayed a noble character with honorable intentions.
There are many movies in which the sum of the parts do not necessarily equal a masterful whole, but this is one of those movies in which the sum of the parts DO EQUAL great entertainment that rewards time and again. The music is tuneful/memorable, the sets and costumes are lavish and the Busby Berkeley numbers are imaginative and eye-filling.
If you love musicals, this is for you!