The Great Ziegfeld Director: Hunt Stromberg (1936)
“I’ve got to have more steps, higher, higher…”
★★★☆☆
Hunt Stromberg’s 1936 MGM extravaganza, The Great Ziegfeld, pinpoints the lavish excesses of Hollywood during its golden age. It is a long (3 hour) musical filled with massive sets and luxurious costumes – spared no expense! It stars Myrna Loy and William Powell in one of their 14 films together (including the Thin Man series of 1930s films). The year 1936 was, after all, the year of William Powell – he was nominated for Best Actor for his performance in My Man Godfrey (which was surprisingly not nominated for Best Picture) and The Great Ziegfeld which won several Academy Awards, including Best Picture. In fact, four of Powell’s five films earned Oscar nods in 1936 and he had quickly become a huge box office draw.
While wholly over-indulgent and far too lengthy of a film, The Great Ziegfeld is still a glamorous romp through the age of the “chorus girl.” It captures the exuberance and opulence of show business in the early 20th century, while also conveying the dejection and disappointment of those who fell on hard times during the Great Depression. While other films certainly were more deserving of Best Picture during the year 1936 in my opinion –such as Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, A Tale of Two Cities, or Modern Times— The Great Ziegfeld is still a marvelous movie, though I might recommend attempting to watch it only a single time as it tends to drag on in monotony and tediousness (and there is also a brief but deeply unfortunate scene of blackface).
At any rate, The Great Ziegfeld offers a portrait of Florenz “Flo” Ziegfeld (William Powell), a well-known Broadway producer and virtuoso active in the early 20th century. He begins his career in sideshows and carnivals, competing with his arch-friend-turned-enemy Jack Billings (Frank Morgan). When Billings features belly-dancers from Egypt to attract men to his shows, Ziegfeld tries a different approach by featuring an attractive strong man, Eugen Sandow, to lure ladies into his shows by allowing them to touch Sandow’s muscles. These kinds of marketing stunts quickly become a staple of his career. However, the Sandow strong man show ends when he stages an appearance at a zoo that is exposed as a fraud.
Ziegfeld then travels to Europe and bumps into his rival, Billings, and winds up stealing his French star girl for a show, Anna Held (Luise Rainer). Though he is broke, he persuades Anna to join him in a New York production. She accepts, and while initial reviews are sour, Ziegfeld attempts a new stunt by sending her tons of milk everyday, and when word gets out women are fascinated with how the milk might be affecting Anna’s skin and performance. The show becomes a hit, and he is later married to Anna, despite her unpredictable temperament. By this point, Ziegfeld is already dreaming of a bigger production –“Ziegfeld’s Follies”– which when released, becomes a Broadway sensation. “Ziegfeld’s Follies” becomes a gigantic extravaganza complete with massive staircases, rotating sets, massive lavish outfits, and many memorable musical numbers, including a notable Irving Berlin song, “A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody.” In reality, Flo Ziegfeld was a womanizer, but the movie rather suspiciously portrays him as merely the victim of drunken licentious women. Eventually, his wife Anna catches him in the wrong place and at the wrong time, so she divorces him.
After losing all his money in the divorce, Ziegfeld again borrows money to finance a new production, and again he falls in love with one of the girls, Billie Burke (Myrna Loy). They are soon married. While initially receiving favorable reviews, Ziegfeld’s new shows begin to dwindle in popularity and the public’s tastes change. One day, while sitting in a barbershop, he overhears three men conversing about how Ziegfeld is washed up and will never have another hit production again. This spurs him on to launch four new successful Broadway productions all at the same time. In dramatic fashion, he convinces the chief inspector of the police to track down the same three men he overheard in the barbershop and Ziegfeld invites them to attend any of the four successful productions on whichever day they choose. He takes all of his earnings and invests in the stock market, just before its crashes in 1929. But at this point, he grows ill and falls into debt inside his apartment overlooking the great Ziegfeld theater. His old rival, Billings, pays him a visit and they discuss re-launching the “Ziegfeld’s Follies” together again. However, after Billings leaves, Ziegfeld realizes they are both broke and their dream is nothing more than a fantasy now. He slumps into his chair and recounts his old stage directions: “I’ve got to have more steps, higher, higher…” before his arm drops and he dies in his chair as the film ends.
Aside from the story, the true tale of Flo Ziegfeld’s debts followed his widow, Billie Burke, after his death in 1932 and in order to pay her bills, she immediately sold the rights to his biopic to Universal Studios in 1933 before it was later re-sold to MGM for the making of this film (Billie Burke was also hired as a consultant on the film by Louis B. Mayer who quickly signed her for a seven-year deal that later included her most famous role as Glinda the Good Witch in the MGM classic The Wizard of Oz in 1939). The Great Ziegfeld was shot entirely at MGM Studios in Culver City, CA, and the cost was a then-extravagant $1.5 Million. It was the longest running “talkie” film released to date, and was the most expensive MGM film to date. Several sequels were later released, but they never reached the heights of the 1936 grandeur. The Great Ziegfeld was a smash hit box office success, and won Best Picture, though in more recent years a critical consensus seems to have emerged that this is a bloated and indulgent film –and in many ways I am forced to agree with this assessment. The extensive musical numbers become a bit redundant and boring, and sitting down to watch an epic biopic about a notorious philanderer and broadway hustler from the 1930s is quite a commitment, especially when considering that friends and family of the real Ziegfeld were involved in the production and they seem to have whitewashed the less savory details about his life (in fact, several lawsuits were threatened by some of his chorus girls if their names appeared in the film). Now, The Great Ziegfeld is largely forgotten and overshadowed by far greater films released in the 1930s.
Credits:
- Director: Robert Z. Leonard
- Written by: William Anthony McGuire
- Produced by: Hunt Stromberg
- Starring:
- William Powell…..Florenz “Flo” Ziegfeld Jr.
- Myrna Loy…..Billie Burke
- Luise Rainer…..Anna Held
- Cinematography: Oliver T. Marsh
- Edited by: William S. Gray
- Music by: Walter Donaldson (lyrics by Harold Adamson)
- Production Company: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
- Distributed by: Loew’s Inc.
9th Academy Awards
Held on March 4, 1937, at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, CA, the 9th Academy Awards ceremony was hosted by the “Toastmaster General of the United States,” George Jessel (his nickname came from the stage production of The Jazz Singer). He was accompanied with music by the Victor Young Orchestra, with Spike Jones on drums.
The 1936 Academy Awards were also not particularly popular with the general public. During the ceremony, George Jessel apparently announced the wrong awards to the right winners of the newly-introduced supporting categories (this was the first year awards were given for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress). And The Great Ziegfeld was reportedly not a popular choice for Best Picture among members of the press, with many feeling that Academy voters had been brainwashed by its “lush gaudiness.” They also felt that Luise Rainer’s win of Best Actress for her performance in The Great Ziegfeld was unjustified due to her fairly brief appearance in the film.
Note: My Man Godfrey became the first film to receive nominations in all four acting categories without winning in any category. It is the only such film to not also receive a nomination for Best Picture, and was the only film to lose all of its nominations until Sunset Boulevard at the 23rd Academy Awards and American Hustle at the 86th Academy Awards.
- Best Picture: The Great Ziegfeld
- Anthony Adverse
- Dodsworth
- Libeled Lady
- Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
- Romeo and Juliet
- San Francisco
- The Story of Louis Pasteur
- A Tale of Two Cities
- Three Smart Girls
- Best Director: Frank Capra – Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
- William Wyler – Dodsworth
- Robert Z. Leonard – The Great Ziegfeld
- Gregory La Cava – My Man Godfrey
- W. S. Van Dyke – San Francisco
- Best Actor: Paul Muni – The Story of Louis Pasteur as Louis Pasteur
- Gary Cooper – Mr. Deeds Goes to Town as Longfellow Deeds
- Walter Huston – Dodsworth as Sam Dodsworth
- William Powell – My Man Godfrey as Godfrey
- Spencer Tracy – San Francisco as Father Tim Mullin
- Best Actress: Luise Rainer – The Great Ziegfeld as Anna Held (she would also controversially win Best Actress the following year for her role in The Good Earth, a role she secured at the behest of Irving Thalberg, making her the first actress to win back-to-back Best Actress awards)
- Irene Dunne – Theodora Goes Wild as Theodora Lynn/”Caroline Adams”
- Gladys George – Valiant Is the Word for Carrie as Carrie Snyder
- Carole Lombard – My Man Godfrey as Irene Bullock
- Norma Shearer – Romeo and Juliet as Juliet
- Best Original Story: The Story of Louis Pasteur – Pierre Collings and Sheridan Gibney
- Fury – Norman Krasna
- The Great Ziegfeld – William Anthony McGuire
- San Francisco – Robert Hopkins
- Three Smart Girls – Adele Comandini
- Best Screenplay: The Story of Louis Pasteur – Pierre Collings and Sheridan Gibney
- After the Thin Man – Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, based on a story by Dashiell Hammett
- Dodsworth – Sidney Howard, based on the play by Howard and the novel by Sinclair Lewis
- Mr. Deeds Goes to Town – Robert Riskin, based on the story “Opera Hat” by Clarence Budington Kelland
- My Man Godfrey – Eric Hatch and Morris Ryskind, based on the story “1101 Park Avenue” by Hatch
Did the right film win Best Picture?
Personally, I do not hold The Great Ziegfeld in particularly high regard, though the musical numbers rife throughout the film are simply undeniable spectacles. But if it were up to me, I likely would have given the top prize in 1936 to Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times, or else to Frank Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.
Click here to return to my film reviews.
Click here to return to my survey of the Best Picture Winners.