THE GREAT ZIEGFELD: Blu-ray (MGM, 1936) Warner Archive

Ad campaigns of its day prematurely proclaimed The Great Ziegfeld (1936) “the sensation of the century.” Perhaps not, but this mind-boggling, pseudo-biographical musical epic is, at once, sumptuous and elephantine. By any barometer of Hollywood’s showmanship, it quite easily puts most any other, even from its own vintage, to shame. Such was the supremacy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer then, presided over by Louis B. Mayer; a mogul, wielding absolute autonomy over a vast studio empire. There is an embarrassment of riches on display in The Great Ziegfeld, put forth by a small army of contracted artisans – talent in front of and behind the camera, representative of the very best in the industry. In its prime, MGM was legally classified as a city, making 52 pictures a year, to say nothing of the myriad of cartoons and live shorts, promos and other goodwill projects being developed to promote the studio’s motto: ‘ars gratia artis’ or ‘art for art’s sake’. Metro had its own film-processing labs, music publishing apparatuses, commissary, and, publicity departments. Moreover, it possessed an enviable roster of plug n’ play top-tier talent. Indeed, everything and anyone needed to make a great movie was under Mayer’s dominion.

So, to state that The Great Ziegfeld had the very best of all worlds is putting things mildly. Ziegfeld's widow, Billie Burke (recast in the picture as Myrna Loy) was a Metro contract player in 1936. Her diligence and formidable powers of persuasion helped to launch this project, very loosely based on her late husband’s legendary career. Although Mayer was enthusiastic about the prestige such a movie would bring, he was as excitable about the amount of money producer, Hunt Stromberg eventually ended up spending to make The Great Ziegfeld as fine and as lavish as anything yet seen on the screen. At a cost of roughly $2 million, the hyperbole around the back lot then was that it had taken an oil well, a couple of Mayer’s prized racing ponies and a personal chit from Bank of America to finance the picture.  And the project was not without its drawbacks, chiefly in a clause affording Burke final cut. William Anthony McGuire's screenplay plays fast and loose with the specifics of Flo and Billie’s lives – both apart and together, most notably in the extramarital affairs the real Florenz Ziegfeld (impeccably played by William Powell) had throughout his life. Indeed, Burke came to view the project as something of a defense and a vindication of her late husband’s reputation, especially after the publication of a spiteful biography; the movie, gradually reshaped into precisely the sort of fictionalized rags-to-riches slice of Americana Mayer thoroughly enjoyed.

By 1936, William Powell and Myrna Loy had appeared in several outstanding melodramas at MGM, including 1934’s The Thin Man. Oft cast as lovably obtuse marrieds or sporting singles, fated to be mated, Powell and Loy are given the opportunity to do a little of each in the second and third acts of The Great Ziegfeld. The strength of the Powell/Loy on-screen alliance and their sublime chemistry as alter-egos, Flo and Billie, is eloquently cemented in a tender moment played against double entendre in rear-projection, as ships quietly pass one another in the night. In her inimitable way, Loy coaxes the first line of dialogue from her lips, referring to their courtship as ‘kindergarten’, the worldlier Ziegfeld’s reputation as an impresario, surrounded by hundreds of beautiful women (inferring he has taken advantage of more than his professional clauses in their options) resulting in the break-up of his first marriage to Anna Held.  As per her inquiry about Anna ‘taking up’ several of Flo’s years, Powell’s model of forthrightness makes zero apology, adding “Yes, Billie, she did….and she was truly a wonderful woman” to which Loy gently mellows as she adds, “I love you for saying that.”

The mood turns palpably romantic, though never maudlin as Powell’s dapper suitor instructs Loy’s affecting grand lady to concentrate, for just a moment, on the ferries crossing to the Palisades, mustering up all his inner resolve and charm to confess, “I love you... I haven't anything to offer you, because there’s nothing you really seem to need. You've made the most of yourself unassisted, and that's grand…so there’s little I can offer you. Nothing I can give you... except my love.” This would already be a superb declaration. Only now, McGuire’s screenplay ups the ante ever so slightly, capping off the moment with an unvarnished charm and matchless sincerity; Loy tenderly reciprocating, “That isn't enough... I expect part of your ambition, half of your trouble, two-thirds of your worries... and all of your respect.”

The Great Ziegfeld is precisely the sort of glossy send-up the real Flo Ziegfeld would have enjoyed immensely; a gargantuan pageant with a lot of class – and girls – touching upon just the right amounts of moral decency, gaudy excess and crazily inspired showmanship. Ziegfeld, who died in Hollywood – not New York, as depicted in the movie – on July 22, 1932, had enjoyed unprecedented success on Broadway and a reputation that only continued to ripen after his passing. By 1936, he was very much ‘a name’ the public knew, and so easy to forget, in his own time, he had struggled to carve this indelible niche upon the Great White Way, enduring professional hardships and personal bankruptcies along the way. If not for Billie Burke, the legacy Flo wrought might have faded into that bygone Vaudevillian epoch, if never entirely lost, then nevertheless left to molder with the past. Yet, perhaps even without acknowledging as much, Hollywood had already paid Ziegfeld the greatest homage it could by pilfering his trademarked ‘glorification of the American girl’ readily exploited to even grander effect in their popularized musical entertainments; ever-expanding rosters of bedecked and bedazzled chorines showing off their leggy assets for the camera. The Great Ziegfeld is as much a tribute to Flo as his follies, all those staggering displays of rooftop glamour and uber-European wit and sophistication clashing with the brashness of Tin Pan Alley.  In his later years, Ziegfeld turned away from the follies to produce a never-again-to-be-equaled run of six hit shows in a single season; Show Boat, Sally, Rio Rita, Simple Simon, Show Girland, and, Smiles: all debuting in 1927. Yet, it is for his twenty-two yearly installments of ‘the follies’ Ziegfeld’s reputation had likely endured and would again be celebrated on celluloid.

The Great Ziegfeld is a mammoth undertaking. It gets the main points of Flo’s life and career right while white-washing the finer details of his first and second marriages. Such was the norm in Hollywood then – particularly when the permission of the second Mrs. Ziegfeld was required to get the job done.  Scripted as a lush and lovely embellishment slanted toward ‘the great man’ and his benevolence toward all, Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., the man who truly ‘glorified the American girl’ begins his illustrious career inauspiciously as a not terribly successful carnival barker at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. His main attraction is Eugene Sandow (Nate Pendleton); an impressive physical specimen. Yet, audiences are not lining up to see the strongman, perhaps because Ziegfeld's rival, Jack Billings (Frank Morgan) and his 'Little Egypt' (Miss Morocco), a writhing belly dancer, are creating quite a stir among the male attendees on the midway.

Flo gets an idea to allow any willing female patron the opportunity to squeeze Sandow's flexing biceps, thereby generating equal-opportunity titillation. It is a shameless plug. But it works like a charm; that is, until Ziegfeld’s plans to engage Sandow in a wrestling match with an obviously drugged lion backfire. The lion will not fight and topples into a sleepy heap at Sandow’s feet. Ziegfeld is branded a charlatan and run out of town, much to Billing’s amused delight. In reality, Sandow was a huge hit at the fair and would remain so even after it closed. Unable to pay Eugene the estimated thousand dollars a week for his services as promised, Ziegfeld instead offered the muscleman a percentage of the gross from generated ticket sales to their attraction. Unwittingly, Ziegfeld would wind up paying Sandow more than $3,600 per week for his services; a mind-blowing sum in 1893.

Returning to his father's (Joseph Cawthorne) music conservatory after the ‘lion debacle’, Flo confides, much to Dr. Ziegfeld’s dismay, he has absolutely zero interest in teaching music for a living. Instead, he intends to travel to Europe to secure the rights to a new star; chanteuse, Anna Held (Luise Rainer), currently all the rage on the other side of the Atlantic. Learning Billings has already crossed the ocean in the hopes to sign Anna to a long-term American contract, Flo intercedes with his inimitable charm and convinces Anna to ally with him instead, despite the fact he has, as yet, no money to produce even a modest show around her. Flo further exacerbates his rival’s patience when he convinces Billing’s valet, Sidney (Ernest Cossart) to quit his employer and become his personal man servant instead. The temperamental Anna initially finds Flo’ an utter nuisance.

In one of the most comically satisfying bits of business, she repeatedly orders Flo from her dressing room with haughty dispatch before recalling him to her side simply because his bouquet of flowers is more to her liking than the one sent over by Billings. Flo engages an English tutor and music instructor, Pierre (Charles Judels) to assist in the cause. Ultimately, Ziegfeld’s class and gentlemanly magnetism win over the changeable Anna. The public, however, remain unconvinced of her star-power, until Flo lets it be known in the newspapers that Anna’s alabaster skin is the result of taking daily ‘milk baths’. Anna is appalled to learn of Flo’s barefaced campaign – especially since none of it is true. Nevertheless, the crowds flock to see what all the fuss is about; no less an authority than Lillian Russell declaring Anna as ‘simply charming’. Before long, Flo proposes and the two are married. True to his promise – Flo has made Anna his first great Americanized star. Regrettably, the newly ensconced king of Broadway is prone to dalliances with the bevy of beauties who populate his follies.

After several lighthearted indiscretions, Flo settles too long on social-climbing chorine, Audrey Dane (a very feline and moderately ferocious, Virginia Bruce). Like Anna, Audrey is given the star treatment and transformed into a headlining talent in Flo’s latest spectacle. Unlike Anna, Audrey is calculating. Never contented as just the toast of Broadway, Audrey begins to make demands on Flo, steadily determined to wreck his marriage by exposing their affair in public. After appearing to great success in Flo’s rooftop follies, a thoroughly inebriated Audrey makes veiled affections toward Ziegfeld in front of the packed house. Miraculously, only Anna reads more into Audrey’s insinuations. True to Audrey's prophecy, the realization of their romance causes the self-respecting Anna to ask for a temporary separation. And although a very tearful Anna fervently believes such absences can only make the heart grow fonder, her own is irrevocably broken when Flo’ files for divorce, then begins a new chapter in his personal life, pursuing the already established stage lovely, Billie Burke (Myrna Loy).

Actress, Luis Rainer would win the first of two back-to-back Oscars for her role as Anna Held, the award, chiefly given for the poignant ‘telephone scene’ in which this Viennese beauty quietly resists breaking down, even feigning tender happiness, as she learns from her estranged husband, he intends to marry Billie just as soon as their divorce is finalized. Initially mis-perceiving the call as a reconciliation, Rainer’s wounded lovely runs an impressive gamut of emotions from elation to very thinly veiled anguish, culminating with Anna hanging up before dissolving into tears. It is a sublime pantomime of melodrama; one, as oft revived as reviled for its sentiment. Yet, even when viewed from our present age of jadedness, unable to believe in any woman who could love a man so completely, Rainer’s emotional outpouring is unambiguously earnest.

Luise Rainer is one of Hollywood’s truly forgotten legends - a woman of substance in an industry – then as now – priding itself on vacuous sexpots. Given the ‘big build-up’ by Mayer’s dream factory as a ‘new find’, Rainer’s ascendance as one of MGM’s hot new finds - is rumored to have rivaled Garbo’s box office clout. This was all but confirmed when the Viennese supernova marched into L.B. Mayer’s private office to implore him for better opportunities, suggesting to Mayer that her source of inspiration had completely dried up. Mayer, who could be caustic and unrelenting with any star disobeying his edicts, reportedly told Luise, “What do you need a source for? Don’t you have a director?!? Rainer…we made yah and we’re gonna kill yah” to which an unflinching Rainer replied, “Mr. Mayer, I’m in my twenties and you are in your fifties. When I am of the age most of your leading ladies are now, you’ll be dead and that is precisely when I will start to live.” As Rainer would later conclude, “And that was it. I walked out. That was the end between Mr. Mayer and me.” Brave gal. Gutsy move. It ended Rainier’s career in Hollywood, though not her ability to remain ensconced in the cinema firmament as one of the ‘great ladies’ of the silver screen.

In the movie, as in life, Flo's second marriage to Billie Burke is a rousing success threatened by an insidious run of bad luck: 1929's stock market crash jeopardizing the now aged impresario’s ability to maintain their lavish lifestyle. Billie allows Flo to hock her jewels to keep them afloat. She also returns to the stage. However, while preparing for a shave at his local barber, Flo overhears several men boorishly predicting his imminent demise. Their casual blood sport incurs his ire, especially after one of the men implies Flo’s days as a legendary Broadway showman are numbered. Unwilling to accept defeat, Flo makes his presence known to these waggling tongues, and furthermore, rallies four hit shows on Broadway simultaneously. The workload, however, wears him out and he eventually collapses from the strain. Recuperating under Sidney's watchful eye while Billie is at work, a greatly depleted Flo hallucinates one last follies - illuminated by an ever-rising set of stairs for which his shows have always been justly famous, now, populated by a parade of elegant ladies and courtiers. Sidney observes as the gentle rose clutched loosely in Ziegfeld’s hand drops to the floor, a lyrical expression of his gentle passing into immortality. In truth, the real Ziegfeld’s heart had been damaged by a virulent bout of pneumonia. From this, he never entirely recovered. Although doctors remained optimistic, his condition became chronic, eventually overtaking the master glorifier in the comfort of his California home on July 22, 1932. He was only 65-years-old.

Viewed today, The Great Ziegfeld can be admired on many different levels. First, and foremost, for director, Robert Z. Leonard’s ability never to lose sight of the real ‘human interest’ story, never stuffed behind the gaudy glamour readily on display.  William Powell and Myrna Loy strike exactly the right tone to ensure the latter half of this mammoth pantheon never wanes from telling a ‘life story’ with musical entertainment to boot. Powell, who had been personally approved by the real Billie Burke, not so much for his physical likeness to her late husband (as he bore absolutely none), but for the content of his character and similarities in manner, deportment and temperament would later comment, “What I tried to do primarily was to get across the essential spirit of the man, his love for show business, his exquisite taste, and, his admiration for the beauty of women. He was financially impractical but aesthetically impeccable—a genius in his chosen field.”  In more recent times, Luise Rainer’s performance has come under heavy criticism for its theatricality, a rather idiotic critique, given the era. Indeed, Rainer’s turn as Anna Held is in direct contrast to Powell and Loy’s more naturalistic approach. And yet, it too remains ideally heartfelt and genuine, boasting European exoticism and yes, ‘theatricality’ that is perfectly in tune, not only with the popularized strain of movie acting in the 1930’s (in many ways, a holdover from the highly stylized ‘play acting’ of the silent era), but even more genuine to the period in which this picture is set; Ziegfeld’s marriage to Anna lasting from 1897 to 1913. Barely four years later, Anna Held died of multiple myeloma – cancer of the white blood cells. She was only 46-years-old!

The lesser performances all serve their purposes. Frank Morgan’s rather befuddled charisma is working overtime as Ziegfeld’s arch rival, Jack Billings, locked in healthy competition to snuff out big ticket talent to an ‘exclusive’ contract (but actually, one of Flo’s closest allies when the chips are down). Virginia Bruce’s vane and self-destructing Audrey Dane (a thinly disguised substitute for actress, Lillian Lorraine, whom the real Ziegfeld had had an affair with while still married to Anna), is appropriately vindictive and jealous without succumbing to the usual clichés of being ‘a bad woman’. Interestingly, the real Billie Burke viewed The Great Ziegfeld as something of a chance to set the record straight about Flo’s extramarital affairs after his reputation was besmirched by a rather scathing biography written by Held’s daughter, Lianne, who despised her stepfather and was actually responsible for writing Anna’s memoirs (the authorship, for some time attributed to the late star herself). The great comedienne, Fanny Brice (whom the real Ziegfeld ‘discovered’ and made famous in his follies) is cast as herself in the movie, and delivers a subtly nuanced performance that adds uncanny verisimilitude. Dancer, Ray Bolger is at his rubber-legged best as a stage janitor given his plum debut by Ziegfeld, warbling and dancing to Walter Donaldson/Harold Adamson’s bouncy, ‘She’s A Follies Girl’.  The Great Ziegfeld is also noteworthy for several outstanding comedic cameos; Reginald Owen, as Flo’s constantly harried stage manager, Sampston; Ernest Cossart, as Flo’s ever-devoted valet, Sidney, and Herman Bing, as a thoroughly irascible costumer Flo hornswoggles into allowing the rental of his outfits for free.

What sets The Great Ziegfeld apart from other soppy melodramas of its vintage are the performances given by William Powell and Myrna Loy. Even if the biographical material in William Anthony McGuire's script becomes occasionally less than sincere (or truthful), neither performer ever is. And Powell and Loy have the great good fortune of clicking on screen with a sort of perennial familiarity that effortlessly translates into rare warmth and strength of character. We love Flo and Billie because we thoroughly adore Powell and Loy. If never married, or even mutually attracted to one another in real life, then on screen, William Powell and Myrna Loy epitomized the loving, good-natured and elegant couple, destined for the altar before the final fade out. In any of their many teamings, this on-screen chemistry remained steadfast and unflappable - though perhaps never more so than in this movie. In real life, Powell and Loy were otherwise happily married but, like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, their fans always suspected there was a mutual love that ran much deeper between them - even if it remained platonic.

Undeniably, the enormity of The Great Ziegfeld’s production design remains impressive. Cedric Gibbons’ art direction (with an un-credited assist from Eddie Imazu) and costume designer, Adrian’s bewildering assortment of thoroughly luscious and occasionally trend-setting attire for the female form divine (it was rumored, under Adrian’s tutelage, Metro’s small army of seamstresses could design up to 5,000 costumes for a single picture) are exquisite contributions that add unprecedented scope and finesse to this production. For sheer spectacle, there is absolutely nothing to touch, ‘A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody’ - a production number built on a gargantuan revolving art deco platform, rotated beneath the stage by four tractors.  Above ground, we get a cacophony of styles, sashaying cat girls and tuxedoed/top-hatted men scaling an immaculate spiral, and, gleaming-white edifice (often referred to as the ‘wedding cake’). Irving Berlin’s arresting tune, lip-sung by a dubbed Dennis Morgan (using Allan Jones’ voice) is interpolated with excerpts from Chopin to Bach, famous operas, and, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Designed, built and photographed at a then staggering cost of $220,000 (ostensibly, what it took the real Ziegfeld to put on a whole show), A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody remains one of purest escapist fantasias from Hollywood’s golden thirties – a monument of engineering, art direction and spell-binding opulence as only MGM could deliver.

Rather transparently created to rival the genius of Busby Berkeley at Warner Brothers, this kaleidoscope staged by Karl Freund, Ray June and George Folsey may not be as geometrically inventive as Berkeley’s best work, but it continues to sparkle with all of the vintage super-kitsch a master showman like Florenz Ziegfeld could have – and would have - appreciated. The other truly inventive number is ‘You, Wonderful You’ – begun with six couples emerging from various art deco vignettes, cumulatively to depict marital domesticity. These pairs step out from their cozy prosceniums, warbling before a gauzy curtain, drawn to conceal the set change, and then, to effortlessly reveal a scintillating – and rather Freudian – display of fifty beds, each containing a gorgeous – and presumably, unmarried – chorine, scantily clad in identical, frilly negligees. Each girl indulges in a champagne cocktail before performing a spirited dance atop their respect mattresses; the rows moved in an out beneath their feet, either towards or away from the camera, as pulled by an unseen tractor pulley. It is precisely this sort of resourcefulness for which MGM’s best musical moments are duly noted and herein, manage to exceed even our wildest expectations for a rousing good time.

Director, Robert Z. Leonard’s approach to the dramatic material is rather pedestrian, the studio’s overcompensation perhaps, for an otherwise uber-plush visual style and the camouflage for Leonard’s workman-like lack of camera fluidity and visual finesse. Even one-take Woody S. Van Dyke has more flair than this. Mercifully, the musical numbers escape Leonard’s embalmed waxworks. Regrettably, some of the dramatic scenes occasionally suffer from his methodical – even lethargic – pacing, right up to the intermission. Again, the acting is so good and the mise en scène as artificially perfect and glittery, it is enough to say Leonard’s failings never bring the picture to a halt.  Produced with every last cent on display, The Great Ziegfeld remains an ambitiously star-studded and very classy affair. It is more of an experience than a movie, but nevertheless great good fun to watch and admire as a textbook example of Metro’s picture-making supremacy at its absolute zenith.

The Warner Archive’s new-to-Blu is a mixed blessing. For although reported to have been sourced from the ‘best possible surviving elements’, there are still a handful of scenes plagued by misregistration, resulting in vibrating halos. This is particularly noticeable and quite distracting during the aforementioned, ‘You, Wonderful You’ production number. Owing to WAC’s usual focus on clean-up, age-related artifacts have been eradicated throughout. Contrast is uniformly excellent, even if several scenes continue to appear underexposed. But there remains a shocking lack of film grain to this presentation. Instead, image quality toggles between pristine and razor sharp, to soft and slightly waxy.  The Great Ziegfeld is a lengthy picture: 185 min. with overture, intermission, entr’acte and exit music – all of it, included here. The audio is DTS 2.0 mono and sounds excellent, with obvious limitations in vintage Westrex soundtrack recordings.  Ported over from Warner Home Video’s old DVD - Ziegfeld on Film – a barely 10+ minute ‘tribute’ to the great man, featuring interviews with Ziegfeld’s surviving heirs and Luis Rainer. Given the deluxe remastering efforts afforded Cimarron and The Broadway Melody – two other Oscar-winning Best Pictures that were far worse for their wear prior to receiving their Blu-ray upgrade earlier this year from WAC, I was expecting far more from this Blu of The Great Ziegfeld. And it really made NO sense the two movies The Great Ziegfeld directly spawned - 1941’s Ziegfeld Girl, and 1945’s Ziegfeld Follies – arrived on Blu-ray in reverse order first. WAC’s taken its sweet time releasing The Great Ziegfeld – the milestone that became a cottage industry at MGM. Were that the remastering efforts were as meticulous as the assemblage of talent that went into the actual movie’s creation.  Won’t poo-poo it further. It’s an upgrade from the tired ole DVD – but only a marginal one.  

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

4.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

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