ZIEGFELD FOLLIES: Blu-ray (MGM, 1946) Warner Archive
Ziegfeld Follies (1946), MGM's
elephantine footnote to producer, Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.’s glorification of the
'American girl', remains an oddity in the studio’s curio of beloved musical
memories. For certain, it had the pedigree of an A-list spectacle.
And further still, it was being marketing a full year in advance as ‘the greatest production since the birth of motion pictures.’ Alas,
like far too many movies aspiring to greatness before actually having achieved
it, pride cometh before the marketing fall. And so, far from living up to its aspirations and hype,
Ziegfeld Follies instead became something of a bungled, half-achieved hot
mess – the studio’s conflagration of top-tier talent stuffed into a cavalcade of fitfully
assembled vignettes and false starts, interpolating a few spell-binding – and intermittently
garish – musical numbers alongside a haphazardly strewn assemblage of time-honored
comedy skits; all of it, meant to replicate a night at the follies. This was MGM’s third - and final - endeavor to immortalize Florenz Ziegfeld and, in hindsight,
the least artistically sound. William Powell appears only briefly, and in a
thoroughly unconvincing white wig and smoking jacket, seated in an ersatz bed chamber, as the great man he had
otherwise brilliantly evoked without such affectation in the original 1936 biopic
devoted to his alter ego, only this time, peering down on MGM’s exquisite
movie-land paradise from his eternal resting perch in heaven to ruminate on
what his former skills as a Broadway impresario could bring to such an industry…if
only he were alive and once again, in charge. If only, indeed!
Alas, Ziegfeld Follies proves the tired old cliché about too many cooks spoiling the broth. Directed by a
small army of Metro’s workhorses, Lemuel Ayers, Roy Del Ruth, Robert Lewis,
Vincente Minnelli, Merrill Pye, George Sidney and Charles Walters, each
endeavoring to outdo the other, Ziegfeld Follies became a picture so
stiflingly top-heavy and incongruously plagued by super kitsch, bloated with one extravagantly ‘ugly’ number or skit toppling into the
next, that as an entertainment for the ages, it ultimately emerges as the tired
silkworm from its artistic cocoon rather than the anticipated butterfly the
studio had aimed for, extolling some forgotten epoch of opulence in the
American theater with too much talent given precious little to do, and decidedly, not enough class on tap. MGM, purveyors of the most lavish super-musicals
of their time, were seemingly determined to rival even themselves, and
arguably, the master showman and his follies on which this claptrap is more
directly based. They ought to have left well enough alone, having resurrected
Ziegfeld twice before (in 1936's sumptuous pseudo-biopic, The Great Ziegfeld,
then again with 1941's intriguing backstage yarn, Ziegfeld Girl). L.B.
Mayer wanted ‘an event’ to mark the studio’s 20th anniversary in
grand style, the net result being, Ziegfeld Follies holds the
dubious distinction for the most production numbers ever shot, eventually to wind up on the cutting room floor. So, what began as a 3-hour, absurdly star-studded bon-bon, eventually found its way to cinema screens, barely running an hour and fifty minutes.
It seems everyone from Fred Astaire to Arthur Freed
had a great idea for a musical vignette in this film. Astaire, in fact, was to
appear in a number entitled 'If Swing Goes, I Go Too' for which numerous
photographic stills survive. Regrettably, the number, although filmed at a
considerable expense, does not. Neither does Avon Long's rendition of Liza sung
to a mute Lena Horne, shot against a paper mâché riverboat backdrop. And then
there is the never completed reunion between Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland
entitled 'I Love You Just As Much in Technicolor as I Did in Black and
White'. This ought to have been an homage to their 'hey kids! Let's put
on a show!' days from the early 1940's. Jimmy Durante's 'Start Off Each
Day with A Song', as well as a reprise of Fanny Brice's 'Baby Snooks'
routine from Vaudeville were apparently shot, although no celluloid evidence
exists to establish their claim. At the last possible moment, Vincente Minnelli's
desire to photograph a lavishly-appointed bubble bath, featuring all of the
stars in Ziegfeld Follies sailing in large gondolas, had to be scrapped
when it was discovered the bubble machine and its 10,000 gallons of liquid
froth, produced noxious gases, causing chorus girls and camera men alike to
swoon.
In most film reviews, Ziegfeld Follies is
referenced for its "embarrassment of riches". Yet in
retrospect, more seems to be lacking than realized from this cornucopia. To be
certain, Ziegfeld Follies does have its outstanding moments. But these
are sandwiched between interminable bouts of leaden comedy and other musical
sequences to tip the scales into gaudy gloss.
In a very public, and slightly embarrassing way, Ziegfeld Follies
was also Mayer’s attempt to re-establish, or rather, maintain the supremacy of his
regal kingdom. To be sure, MGM was still the king of features, resplendent, and
with 'more stars than there are in heaven'. But with an end to the war
in Europe the public’s taste in entertainment had slowly begun to shift away
from this sort of ultra-glamour. Also, by 1946, MGM was hardly the studio it
had once been. In fact, if only to consider its yearly output from the
standpoint of revenue and awards, MGM had already lost its’ ‘blue book’ status
as the brightest studio in Hollywood, though it would remain the biggest for
some time yet to follow. Regrettably, as
a plot-less celebration of MGM’s star system, Ziegfeld Follies outwardly
reflects the inner malaise enveloping the studio: a laborious exercise in
mismanaged funds and wasted talent. With such formidable stars on tap as Judy
Garland, Red Skelton, Esther Williams and Kathryn Grayson – to name but a
handful – it is rather difficult to miss the mark of integrity entirely. Yet,
on the whole, Ziegfeld Follies is less of a big-time bonanza for movie
lovers and very much more the tired old chestnut one wishes would simply fade
into obscurity.
The film opens with William Powell reprising his role
as Ziegfeld, this time looking down on MGM from his heavenly rest with sincere
admiration - one master tipping his hat to another. Utilizing the studio’s
formidable array of talent, Flo envisions an opening number in the vein of his
earliest follies, hosted by Fred Astaire (who gets the lion's share of musical
numbers in the finished film). ‘Here's
To The Beautiful Ladies’ is meant as homage to Ziegfeld's glorification of
the American girl. There are plenty to go around- and around - on a bizarre
pink carousel featuring live horses. The girls, in all their blushing plumage,
coo and smile politely for the camera, reaching for gold and satin velvet rings
from a dispenser as Astaire emerges on the arm of Cyd Charisse – then being
groomed for her balletic abilities - yet given precious little to do apart from
a momentary kick or two on point. From here, the sequence degenerates into a
grotesque twaddle of lavishness. Lucille Ball slinks from a cloud of black and
red smoke, taming a chorus of cat women with a whip as they pretend to claw at
her rosy-sequined gown. As though realizing all of this nonsense is more
‘crass’ than ‘class’, the opening number gives way to an utter lampoon of
itself; 'Here's To Those Wonderful Men' sung with deadpan perfection by
Virginia O'Brien. A choice sampling of the lyrics suggests better comedy
vignettes to follow, “Bring me those wonderful men. Bring me an elegant guy.
A solider. A sailor. A Gable or Taylor. A short or a tall one. I just wanna
call one. A dark or a light one. I just wanna sight one. Someone to relax
with…and pay income tax with…and though he’s from Hunger, I’m not getting’
younger.”
From this inauspicious beginning, we dive head first
into an Esther Williams’ water ballet. Originally, this sequence was to have
been preceded by the song 'We Will Meet Again in Honolulu'. Instead,
what survives is an inexplicably truncated and rather undernourished underwater
sequence that begins and ends somewhere in the middle with Williams already
submersed and swimming through a congested jungle of multicolored plastic
plankton. The ballet ought to have been exciting. Instead, it unravels rather
quickly into a sort of pedestrian outtake from some other aquacade entirely.
Perhaps most disappointing of all are the film's comedy sequences interpolated
with the songs and other musical oddities - a claptrap of Vaudeville routines
set against cardboard backdrops. The first of these immediately follows the
water ballet. Victor Moore's 'Pay the Two Dollars' tells the tale of a
man fined for expectorating on the subway. His lawyer (Edward Arnold) refuses
to pay the modest fine, resulting in Moore narrowly escaping a capital death
sentence for inadvertently spreading a contagious disease. Asked to quantify
the expenses for his defense, the attorney lists his mother, wife and daughter
on the list of rebuttal opinions…why? Because, everybody has one! Released from
prison with his reputation as a solid citizen in tatters, Moore forgets himself
and spits on the subway again, thereby re-starting the whole process.
Ziegfeld Follies now moves into
its most garish vignette, a duet between wanna-be opera stars, James Melton and
Marian Bell, performing ‘Libiamo ne' lieti calici’ from Traviata.
A note on these two never-to-be Metro successors, briefly being groomed to inherit
the mantle of operetta/comedy vacated by Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald.
Melton’s was arguably the ‘bigger’ career at the time, having begun in the late
20’s as a tenor balladeer peddling popular songs, but who also occasionally
dabbled in opera. Unlike his tenure in the movies, his radio career was far
more prolific. Melton also performed for the Cincinnati, Philadelphia and
Metropolitan opera companies. His passion for auto racing manifested itself in
an impressive private collection of 125 antique cars, dispersed after his death
in 1961, age, 57. As for Bell, the St. Louis-born, buxom and raven-haired
soprano, who had first appeared on a radio talent program at the tender age of
eight, thereafter groomed for operatic success, became more infamously known
for her failed marriages, the most high-profile to librettist, Alan Jay Lerner,
who she would later divorce, citing cruelty. Bell was the second of Lerner’s
eight wives. Plagued by reoccurring bouts of hepatitis, Bell was also heavily
criticized as a singer ‘good enough’ for Broadway, but not for the classics. Suffering
a mental breakdown, Bell spent much of the fifties in and out of asylums before
retreating to her parents’ home in California. Rather impressively, and despite
her various setbacks, Bell would round out her career, having given 200
concerts. She died in 1997. The pairing of Bell and Melton in Ziegfeld
Follies ought to have marked an impressive launch. Alas, the costumes in
this sequence are some of the ugliest ever conceived for film: men, dressed in
18th century tuxedos made of faux velvet with angular waist coats, green lapels
and frill-ruffled shirts, the women sporting black-and-beige ball gowns embroidered
in various insect patterns. Even cameraman, George J. Folsey does not seem
certain of where to divert our attentions, pulling back and forth from high
overhead shots looking directly down on this ensemble, as if to suggest a Busby
Berkley-esque moment, then pulling back in extreme long shot, dwarfing the dancers
against a deadening backdrop of white semi-translucent curtains, cut to suggest
the arcs of a cathedral. Melton and Bell are in very fine voice. But their
melodious pairing is obfuscated by the obscene clumsiness of this staging and
the grotesquely over-sized costuming that makes each of them look as overgrown
children, masquerading in mummy and daddy’s discarded party clothes after a
ball.
Red Skelton polishes off his old routine 'When
Television Comes/Guzzler's Gin Program'; the most static of the comedy
sequences. Skelton is photographed dead center against an uninspiring backdrop
as a radio announcer, forced to drink gin as part of his ‘on air’ promos. He
thereafter becomes increasingly intoxicated from the libation. We have thus
reached the midway point of Ziegfeld Follies, and also, its most deliciously
realized and satisfying dramatic/musical sequence: 'This Heart of Mine'
- sung by Fred Astaire as an elegant jewel thief masquerading as an aristocrat.
He melts the heart of an ice princess (played with glacial appeal by Lucille
Bremer) at a lavish ball, presumably as a prelude to stealing her jewels.
Unable to rid himself of a growing affection for his intended victim, the thief
prematurely attempts to bid the princess farewell, but is chagrined when she
willingly offers him her necklace and earrings at their parting, having already
realized the purpose behind his seduction. The thief accepts her offer, but
then, suddenly realizes he would prefer to have the girl instead. They reunite
in a passionate embrace and leave the ball together. In a movie touched by so
many epic misfires, ‘This Heart of Mine’ easily becomes the first, if
not in fact the most exquisite and memorable highlight in Ziegfeld Follies,
not only because it manages to tap into the Astaire mystique cultivated as the
bon vivant and sophisticate in 9 RKO movie musicals opposite Ginger Rogers, but
also because, unlike the many other sequences in this film, to appear as
truncated music box selections plucked from a catalog of outtakes, ‘This Heart
of Mine’ endeavors to tell an entire plot in miniature, as well as
establish an on-screen persona for Bremer, whose Metro career would be
short-lived and otherwise forgettable.
'This Heart of Mine' is superb
pantomime set against the film's most absurdly luxuriant backdrops. A blood red
ballroom with white, heavily beaded and feather chandeliers give way to a
gray-marbled terrace, set against piercing blue skies. Here, Astaire and Bremer
are accompanied in their pas deux by two-dozen dancers attired in glittery and
lurid shades of purple, yellow and black. Alas, Ziegfeld Follies sinks
back into the mire of forgettable tripe with its next two sequences; the first,
featuring Lena Horne, cooing the sultry ballad ‘Love’ in a set, vaguely
to resemble a Mississippi brothel. Aside: I sincerely wish Horne’s other
number, ‘Liza’ had survived. Production stills for that sequence reveal
an ornate riverboat set and Horne, looking utterly immaculate in a gown of
white, toting a parasol. ‘Love’ is staged with virtually zero finesse against a
bilious green backdrop. But even its tedium is offset by the next sequence in
the movie: a lugubrious comedy skit, 'Sweepstakes Ticket'. This is an
idiotic, often violent parody between an impoverished husband and wife played
by Fanny Brice and Hume Cronyn. He has won the lottery but cannot seem to
remember where he has mislaid the winning ticket. She becomes increasingly
hysterical and vicious after learning her husband traded it to their landlord
(William Frawley) in exchange for a stay on their rent. The landlord, now refuses
to give it back, although as yet unsuspecting he holds the promise of millions
in his hand. Things pick up with Judy Garland's scathing lampoon of Greer
Garson in 'The Great Lady Gives an Interview'. Garson had originally
been tapped by producer, Arthur Freed to poke fun at her own film persona. She
declined and after the Judy/Mickey reunion number was scrapped from Ziegfeld
Follies’ program, Freed approached Judy to perform this number in its
place. Garland is magnificent as the overly flamboyant diva, stricken with
self-importance - her flashing eyes, wooing the gentlemen of the press as she
dramatically emotes the virtues of Madame Crematon - the inventor of the safety
pin.
Perhaps in awe of the rushes on ‘This Heart of
Mine’, Astaire and Bremer return in Limehouse Blues; a curious pas
deux, inspired by Gertrude Lawrence's Broken Blossoms and incorporating
redressed sets from MGM's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945). Astaire is
a Chinese coolie who follows Bremer's ‘working girl’ into the ‘red light’
district of London where she is seen courting a wealthy Anglo patron and
admiring an ornate Chinese fan in one of the shop windows. A robbery ensues and
Astaire is accidentally shot by the police. As he lays dying on the pavement,
his character envisions a French chinoiserie paradise where he and Bremer
frolic and dance. With its radically shifting palette of colors and starburst
light patterns, Limehouse Blues steadily unravels into an unattractive
physical manifestation of the coolie’s obsession with the prostitute, stilled
by the specter of death fast-approaching and the rejection of his gift of the
fan, damaged in the robbery and callously discarded by the whore who favors her
wealthy Anglo client instead. In addition to staging this atmospheric
nightmare, Vincente Minnelli also supervised its art direction, dotting the
landscape with gunmetal palms, burnt orange feathers and hot, red-plaster and
clay statuary, sprayed with silver and rubbed gold. Unfortunately, for Astaire
and Bremer, the set becomes so busy that, at times, it is difficult to
appreciate the dance.
The last comedy vignette in Ziegfeld Follies, 'Number
Please' is also its most careworn. Keenan Wynn plays a man unable to
connect with a New York telephone extension. Inexplicably, no one else who uses
the same pay phone is detoured when calling the most obscure locations on earth,
touching base with friends in far off Brazil, South Africa, Russia and
Transylvania. Aside: Bud Abbott and Lou Costello performed a far more
entertaining variant of this skit in the 1942 comedy classic, Who Done It? Ziegfeld Follies concludes with two
very different musical offerings. The first, The Babbitt and the Bromide,
marks the only time Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly danced together (save their
awkwardly conceived ‘reunion’ intros for 1976's That's Entertainment Part II).
The jovial lyrics follow the lives of two men who outwardly pretend to be
friends, but secretly view one another as rivals. Their first cute meet in
youth is followed by a precious reunion in middle age, and finally, a final
pairing after death, as harp-toting angels still out to prove each is the
better dancer in front of St. Peter's gates. The Babbitt and the Bromide is
a chance for fans to do a comparative analysis of Kelly and Astaire’s
exceedingly different dancing styles; Kelly’s robust athleticism matched by
Astaire’s peerless fluidity in motion. It is an electrifying competition number,
with Astaire and Kelly’s feet tapping in perfect unison, but their body
language from the ankles up, anything but a carbon copy of the other’s grace
and perfectionism. The spectacle of seeing both #1 dancers in the world dueling
it out is a reminder of the greater lost opportunity. MGM, never co-starred
Kelly and Astaire in a feature-length movie.
Ziegfeld Follies concludes on a
decidedly sour note with Vincente Minnelli's inherited, and thoroughly
ill-fated bubble ballet, set to a truly joyless song - There's Beauty
Everywhere, warbled by Kathryn Grayson on a revolving platform set against
a rather apocalyptic backdrop of brewing storm clouds. Nothing about this
sequence gels as it should. Grayson, hair parted down the middle, wears a
rather unflattering pink taffeta gown, her ebony tresses blowing in an
artificial wind. From here, the song dissolves into a very brief portion of the
half-executed bubble ballet. Cyd Charisse is briefly glimpsed flitting through
mountains of glittery soap before the camera dissolves into a Salvador Dali-esque
backdrop in forced perspective, populated by statuesque beauties moving as
stilted mannequins, the wind machine gently tugging at their gold lame
evening gowns. Minnelli's boom maneuvers the camera amid these shadowy ruins.
As we come to the last of the poised lovelies the camera tips downward, trailing
a long extension of translucent fabric to a pedestal where we are reunited with
Grayson, concluding the song as a large canopy of lights spells out the film's
title against a curtained backdrop.
After giving us so many stellar examples of the movie
musical/comedy, refined into a fine art, Ziegfeld Follies comes across
as a most peculiar offering from Arthur Freed and MGM. Its professionalism is
beyond reproach. All of the stars are giving it everything they have. Yet, what
is absent here is that elusive spark of exhilaration to offset the spellbinding
glamour. Somehow, even with all this
megawatt star power on tap, it is never quite enough to make us forget Ziegfeld
Follies as more of an MGM waxwork than valiant contributor to their canon
of rarified movie art. The entire enterprise is submerged under the weight of
its fantastic artifice. The movie drags with interminable and paralytic
lethargy. At some point, we suddenly realize Ziegfeld Follies is
ceaselessly blessed with too much of a good thing, the stars not necessarily in
competition to outdo one another, but also, doing nothing to actually stand in
relief from the elephantine and occasionally recycled production values, given
a fresh coat of paint, but precious little else to augment their Tiffany
settings. In the end, one feels strangely deprived, as though having gorged on
too many sweets at a pastry table of a profligately-appointed banquet where all
the edibles have already begun to slightly turn from having been set out too
long under the hot klieg lights.
Ziegfeld Follies does not
enthrall as much as it repeatedly begs the inquiry as to how and why so much
effort could have been exerted on such a banal concoction of oddities and
outtakes. Even the excessively bloated show-within-a-show finale to the studio’s
own Thousands Cheer (1943) has more grandiloquence to celebrate. Arguably,
Mayer’s initial desire to ‘recreate’ a movie of anniversary ‘event’ proportions
from Ziegfeld’s own follies was always a flawed premise, as part of that
spectacle derives its excitement from being pleasantly surprised by a live show’s
repeated quick changes and curtain calls - the cavalcade, unfurling before our
very eyes. In a medium where a simple cut can justify days or even months’
passages of time between moments connected – and collected – together for the
screen, the spontaneity of this caravan gets diffused into an obscene
over-layering; the comedy turned to claptrap and the merriment in song,
sandbagged by the frivolity in its farce. Instead of complementing each other,
this unevenly paced concoction is all but swamped by its own magnificence. In the final analysis, Ziegfeld Follies
is the weakest of MGM’s tributes to Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. despite its robust star
power on which it chronically draws – then repeatedly drains of all inspiration.
Ziegfeld Follies had a trouble release history. It missed MGM’s 20th
anniversary by a year, but was begun – and ostensibly, completed in 1944 – two years,
before it actually arrived on the screen. The picture was shown in 1944 to a ‘sneak
peek’ audience, and, at its original full-length of 173-minutes. Mayer, alas,
was singularly unimpressed. Creative decisions were made to tighten the run
time. Another ‘road show’ pre-screening, complete with intermission, followed almost
a full year later in Boston. Mayer again, did not subscribe with interest. So, aggressive
cuts were made, with over an hour of footage cut from the movie’s official
premiere, archived by the studio, but then lost in a vault fire decades later.
Ziegfeld Follies has never
looked stellar on home video. While some sequences retained their original Technicolor
luster, others, like the Bell/Melton duet, Garland’s solo, and the
Astaire/Kelly dance, were marred by a muddy and slightly faded palette. Worse,
there appeared to be a residual softness creeping in from the peripheries of
the screen, with anemic contrast and age-related artifacts to boot. Well, you
can forget about those past indiscretions now, because the Warner Archive’s
new-to-Blu of Ziegfeld Follies is singularly impressive from start to
finish. Not only has the vintage Technicolor been painstakingly restored, with
slight mis-registration problems previously occurring, now corrected for an
exceptionally crisp and refined image, but color fidelity simply pops, while
contrast is bang-on perfection. WAC has obviously spent considerable coin yet
again to ensure another of their prime assets has emerged for future
generations to study in optimal quality befitting the efforts put forth by the
small army of original craftsmen who worked on the movie back in 1945/46. I was
taken aback by the crispness of the image. Close-ups are shockingly beautiful
with fine detail in hair, skin and costuming noticeable for the very first
time. The monumental undertaking of restoring Ziegfeld Follies to its
original luster hasn’t made it a better movie for the ages. But it has made it
a more tolerable and genuinely fascinating train wreck to behold. WAC has
ported over the same 5.1 stereo mix that was previously achieved for its deluxe
CAV Laserdisc release back in 1993. Aside: for purists, the original mono mix
is included. Aside: the LD of Ziegfeld Follies contained a veritable
music box of fascinating outtakes – both audio and video – almost 3 hrs. of
excised material. When Ziegfeld Follies found its way to DVD only a handful
of those outtakes found their way to disc. It is this same anemic offering now that
has made the transition to Blu. Bottom line: another astonishing effort from
WAC on a musical that, arguably, remains unworthy of the effort. There are at
least another two-dozen or so truly great classic movie musicals from the MGM
stable that deserve a hi-def release over this one. Judge and buy accordingly.
FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the
best)
2
VIDEO/AUDIO
5+
EXTRAS
2
Comments