Ziegfeld Follies (1945)

The film opens with Florenz Ziegfeld (William Powell, reprising his role in 1936's Oscar winning "The Great Ziegfield"), now in 'a heavenly place', reminiscing about his time on Broadway and imagining the show that he would put on if he was still an impresario. What follows is a collection of independent acts starring some of the top talent of the day. IMO, comedy does not age well: while the Fanny Brice segment about winning the Irish Sweepstakes was not too bad, Keenan Wynn's and Red Skelton's broad, almost slapstick, antics were dated and tedious. Judy Garland's satirical song about a Hollywood diva was entertaining but most of the references would be lost on anyone unfamiliar with the contemporary entertainment world. Not surprisingly, given the Ziegfield framework, much of the film is 'song-and-dance', including the opening act, which sees Fred Astaire dancing with the gorgeous (and leggy) Cyd Charisse, and then drifts into almost 'S and M' fantasy, with Lucille Ball whip-training a group of chorus-girls dressed as black panthers. There is also a strange and very elaborate China-esque number, featuring Asian motifs and Astaire and Lucille Bremer miming and dancing in 'yellow-face', and an underwater 'ballet' featuring the one-of-a-kind Ester Williams. Highlights (IMO) are the beautiful Lena Horne belting out the song "Love", Astaire and Bremer dancing on a rotating stage complete with treadmills, a fantastic Fred Astaire/Gene Kelly duet, and the final number, a surreal sequence featuring coloratura soprano Kathryn Grayson on a stage surrounded by mountains of soap bubbles! All in all, although the film is uneven and is dated in places, it includes a few magnificent performances by some of Hollywood's most iconic entertainers and is well worth watching for those alone.

Since The Great Ziegfeld was such a big hit in 1936, winning the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Actress, Hollywood decided to reprise their hit with Ziegfeld Follies nine years later. While the film from 1936 was a biopic of Florenz Ziegfeld, this "sequel" is quite different. Mr. Ziegfeld starts off the movie in heaven, and the entire film is an imagination of a fantasy show he'd like to put on if he were still alive and in the theater business. Yes, it sounds a little depressing, but in reality, it doesn't harp on his death very much; it's basically a two hour variety show that brings Hollywood's biggest and brightest musical stars together.William Powell played Mr. Ziegfeld in both movies, and neither one really required any acting from him; he just had to be William Powell, full of authority and a little stand-off-ish. Without that silly little thing known as a plot, the singers and dancers were able to perform their numbers one after another, creating a feature-length montage for movie-goers who, at the time, couldn't rent or own movies to re-watch them. If they wanted to see Fred Astaire, they had to wait until his next movie came into the theaters. Ziegfeld Follies was such a huge hit because it was made in a pre-YouTube era; audiences couldn't just watch a twenty minute compilation of their favorite dance numbers online whenever they felt like it. In 1945, it was a humungous treat to go to the movie house and watch Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Kathryn Grayson, Judy Garland, Esther Williams, Lena Horne, Lucille Ball, Victor Moore, Red Skelton, Fanny Brice, Edward Arnold, Cyd Charisse, Hume Cronyn, Lucille Bremer, James Melton, Virginia O'Brien, and Keenan Wynn all in one film! Modern audiences might find the movie a little long in the tooth, especially since not all the songs are winners. Fred Astaire headlines a chorus number "Here's to the Girls" which is pretty cute, but Judy Garland's "A Great Lady Has an Interview" will have you reaching for the fast-forward button on your remote. The entire film's a crapshoot, so if you decide to sit through the whole thing, be prepared to take the bad with the good. There is one extremely famous number to come from this film. If you're at all versed in musicals, I can guarantee you've seen this clip from Ziegfeld Follies: the one and only duet danced by Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. It's one of the greatest dance scenes in history, with a hilarious dialogue exchange beforehand that instantly charms your heart. "No, I'm not, Ginger," is one of my favorite household phrases! Watching the chemistry and talent of the two greatest dancers is a wonderful and necessary experience, so add the clip of "The Babbitt and the Bromide" to your YouTube favorites list. I've watched it at least twenty-five times; it's just impossible to resist back-to-back viewings, especially since both men later revealed that their favorite dance partners in their entire careers were each other!

I like the beginning. We see a view through the clouds of heaven. Along the way, Shakespeare has a little place in the sky too. We see Ziegfeld's, a classy little bedroom type of place with a balcony and golden artifacts. William Powell was quite relaxed there while reminiscing and wishing he could go back and do his follies again. Nostalgia is nice. We then see some clay versions of Ziegfeld's shows. There was quite a good clay model likeness, sight and sound, of "To be jolly" (from "The great Ziegfeld") at the theater, Fannie Brice ("ah-ha! I'm an Indian" ), Will Rogers and Eddie Canter (both reprising their roles from "The great Ziegfeld". Rogers with his "well er, I don't have anything funny to say, except er what I read in the papers" and Cantor reprising his performance of "If you knew Suzie"). Here were the following great skits I enjoyed.Fred Astaire and "Bring on the beautiful ladies with a bunch of nice looking gals singing including Virginia O'brien singing nicely and Lucille Ball too. The women that come dancing are a little older. Some may wonder why they didn't use younger women, the reason is is that those middle aged women were real former Ziegfeld girls from the 1910s and 1920s, and I for one really liked that.Katherine Grayson's beauty and lovely singing. I don't understand why so many people in the 21st century dislike opera. The old fashoined music lovers, besides me are few and far between now and not often anyone under 60. Anyway, Katherine Grayson's voice is so beautiful, it's extremely talented, and Katherine is gorgeous in her sweet old fashioned way. The ballroom dancing scene Traviata. Very nice. The music, the girls and their ballroom floorlength gowns were all beautiful. Esther swimming was great as always. Even though her water ballets in "Bathing beauty" and "This time for keeps" were her very best, most of her others were not far behind in greatness. Judy Garland, wonderful and beautiful in so many of her films. Very good here.Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly's skit. This is one of the only times when those two fabulous golden agers starred together. How can that not be great?The Fanny Brice part was hilarious. I liked Fanny in her 1930s work including "The great Ziegfeld" and "Everybody sing". Here, she is very funny. She finds her sweepstakes ticket is a winner. Her reaction is funny when learning what her daft husband did. Husband: "I was short $2.50 paying the rent so I gave the landlord our sweepstake ticket Fanny: "so what" (suddenly gasps in surprise, angry) "Honey, you should drop dead!" Husband: "I thinking of jumping out that window" Fanny: "who's stopping you?". All funny. Then the amusing tactics of Fanny and husband trying numerous ways to get the ticket back. Very good funny segment.The Kenan Wynn skit was pretty good. He gets increasingly frustrated during a phone call while trying to connect a number with an operator who kept jerking him around in amusing ways but was linking up everyone around him just fine on their phone calls. And Kenan finally gettong so frustrated he starts eat the phone. It was funny. I also liked Kenan in some of his other stuff though, such as "Neptune's daughter" and "Me and my gal" with Judy.The Red Skeleton skit was only fair. He wasn't as good as he's been in some of his other stuff such as in Esther Williams' "Neptune's daughter" and "Bathing beauty" (the ballet class scene in that film was hilarious). The Victor Moore "Just pay the two dollars!" skit was a funny idea that had a lot of funny jokes in it. But Victor Moore is just too whiny. He's also too whiny in "Gold diggers 37" which put a bit of a damper in that otherwise great film.Overall, this was another very good old time classic film

I missed this film when it was first released just after the war ended, but I noted the incredible array of stars featured and decided to watch it whenever a suitable opportunity offered. However it dropped out of attention before this occurred, and it was only very recently that I noticed it was scheduled to be screened again by TCM on television. I therefore took the opportunity to see it at last. After watching for a few minutes I felt I knew exactly what was being shown - it was an overlong and very tedious T.V. advertisement for MGM Studios that took the form of unrelated sequences featuring the various stars they had under contract. Whether it was more acceptable on the big screen I do not know as I never saw it there, but even if it were to be shown in a local cinema again I would certainly not be prepared to pay good money in order to find out.On television, the longer it ran the clearer it seemed that my initial impression was precisely correct. The only link provided between the various sequences was the attempt to parade them in the form of a Broadway show devised in Heaven after his death by Ziegfeld himself - presumably so that we were encouraged to think of him as remaining an honorary member of the MGM Studio team. The various stars who were "encouraged " to take part in this travesty of a film probably felt quite ashamed of their part in it. It was nominally directed by Vincente Minnelli, but history appears to indicate that he should not be too severely blamed. I understand that he had no part in directing the totally disastrous first segment, and he was only responsible for some of the others, even during these he has been reported to have been on a very tight rein. He too I am sure would prefer his no doubt enforced role in this film to be quickly forgotten.Out of kindness to the talented and hardworking participants who clearly tried very hard and deserved much better, I will rate this at 3. For a film buff this is almost certainly justified by the sequence starring Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly dancing together. I believe this is the only film in which this occurs and, apart from the great opportunity to admire the incredible timing they both showed, it was extremely interesting to be able to compare their very different techniques at such close quarters. But the rest is best quickly forgotten.