The Great Ziegfeld 1936

The Film:

It's a musical. An MGM Musical. And it's also a bio-pic of someone I already know a bit about (the first bio-pic to win the award). It's not a film I had seen, although I knew the (in)famous "Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody" sequence from That's Entertainment. All the signs point to this being my sort of film....

It was very heavily promoted by MGM, who threw lots of money at the production as well as the promotion - and it became a massive box office hit.

Getting the project off the ground was apparently quite a feat in itself. Ziegfeld himself had only been dead a couple of years and his wife (Billie Burke, played by Myrna Loy) and many, many of his mistresses and business associates were nearly all still around, each with a different take on what really went on.

Billie Burke sold the rights to her story in order to pay off Ziegfeld's debts - but she blocked the casting of Marilyn Miller, who then threatened to sue if she was mentioned at all in the film (although she's quite obviously the character "Sally Manners" - who has a much smaller part to play than you would expect....). So the story behind the story is fascinating in itself, and the very large production numbers are infamously spectacular. Time to settle down with the popcorn....


The Ceremony:

Still very much a gala dinner rather than a performance!

The Awards were held at The Biltmore again, on the same weekend of the year as last year - 4th March 1937. They were definitely starting to take shape as a real event by now (which was the 9th ceremony) and the evening included music from the Victor Young and his orchestra - he was becoming a big name in musical accompaniment in Hollywood and is probably most famous for working with Bing Crosby.

The main big change this year was the introduction of Best Supporting Actor / Actress categories - long overdue, since Lionel Barrymore won an Oscar for a decidedly supporting role back in 1931. The triple nominations for the actors in Mutiny On The Bounty the previous year was probably the main thing that prompted the change for this year. These categories have been awarded every year since and have been really important in highlighting lesser known actors and films - particularly comic actors and character actors.



Other Notable Winners That Night:

Frank Capra, Luise Rainer and Paul Muni - Best Director,
Best Actress and Best Actor 

Frank Capra won Best Director for the second time in three years - this time for Mr Deeds Goes To Town (see below for my verdict on that film!).

Luise Rainer won Best Actress for playing Ziegfeld's first wife, Anna Held in The Great Ziegfeld. She's a German actress, playing a French actress speaking in English. She emotes a lot - more, or less, successfully than Garbo in Grand Hotel (depending on your point of view) but with a similar amount of moping about in her room on the telephone.

Paul Muni won his only award (from several nominations) for playing Louis Pasteur. He's playing Emile Zola in our next film, so I'll say more about him then.

The first Supporting awards went to Walter Brennan (one of his three - matched only by Nicholson and Day Lewis!) and Gale Sondergaard (again, more of her next time).

Here's a nice bit of (clearly staged) film of Luise Rainer receiving her award:

Best Song:

A lot of songs nominated this year, including Pennies from Heaven and I've Got You Under My Skin, which have both stood the test of time. Nothing from Ziegfeld, as none of them were "original". An absolute classic won again this year. "The Way You Look Tonight" from Swing Time. Take it away Fred:

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

Don't worry Gary - your time will come. And at least you didn't
get killed after five minutes in this one!

I do like my musicals but I think it's going to be another 25 films or so until one that I really love wins Best Picture. The Great Ziegfeld would not have been my pick for this year.

There are quite a few big hitters on the list this year (and one of my favourite Deanna Durbin films - Three Smart Girls!) but one stands out clearly for me. The award should have gone to Mr Deeds Goes To Town. Hands down. Absolutely. Watch me beat down anyone who argues otherwise....

Yes, I'm an unashamed Capra fan, so I may be a little bit biased. But I watched this film again a couple of months ago and it is still incredibly watchable, beautifully filmed, scripted, acted etc - and massively relevant to the modern world. Longfellow Deeds' speech in the courtroom near the end reminded me of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, and made me wish that every Trump voter had been forced to watch this on a loop in the lead up to the elections. And when you think about what was going on in the US in the mid-30s, and what happened to left-leaning Hollywood a few years later, it is a real shame that this lost out to the nostalgic excesses of Ziegfeld.


Our Verdict:

Pretty girls, just like melodies - great overblown excessive ones!

I don't  really know where to start with this one. I was quite looking forward to a good old fancy 30s musical - but overall the whole thing was a bit of a let down.

The film was very lovely to look at, the dialogue was far less cheesy than I thought it would be, and the acting was really rather impressive. I particularly liked William Powell in the lead. He did a very good job at playing someone who (and here's part of the problem) ultimately wasn't very likeable or particularly interesting.

Not quite the same impact as the NHS sequence at the
2012 Olympics - but impressive, nonetheless!

The big set pieces were great fun (I liked them more than Andy did - but I expected that) and they had learned a lot since Broadway Melody about how to film very stage-bound numbers. The "Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody" number is the one I knew and it looks great. There were also a couple of others - including one with loads of beds, another with some trained dogs (see clip below), and a great bit of pre-scarecrow Ray Bolger throwing himself across the stage.

The problem is, there weren't quite enough of them compared to how much time was spent on the overall story. We were about an hour in before we got the first one. And an hour in was only a third of the way through the film.

This was a looooong film. Far too long for such a slight story - he makes money, he loses it, he finds women, he loses them, he puts on shows, he dies. That's the story. About a quarter of it was singing and dancing. And I can't really tell you what took up all the time for the rest of it.

Thank you Fanny Brice!!

The second billed name is Myrna Loy and she doesn't turn up for over two hours - and then is criminally under-used (although the real Billie Burke may have had something to do with that....). Frank Morgan is great as Ziegfeld's friend/rival but the character seems to run out of steam half way through. (Lots of Oz interest here though - with Ray Bolger, Frank Morgan and the real Billie Burke all going to appear in the Wizard of Oz in a few years time...)

The absolute saving grace of the whole film is the appearance of Fanny Brice playing herself (although she's billed as Fannie Brice). I've seen Funny Girl a few times but I'd never seen any footage of the real thing. She is a breath of fresh air at just the right moment and gets a nice chance to show off her singing and comedic talents. And all credit to Barbra Streisand who did such a good impression of her! I only wish there had been more Fanny Brice and a lot less faffing around with everything else.

Weirdly, this film appears to have inspired a lot of gifs!

I think I had two main problems with The Great Ziegfeld. One, it was about an hour too long. Other three hour plus films that spring to mind are Gone With The Wind, Giant and The Godfather. They were all big family sagas with plenty of action and a lot to say. This film really wasn't.

Secondly, it wasn't really sure if it was a musical film or just a film about musicals. It felt like a drama with some set pieces thrown in (which neither 42nd Street or even The Broadway Melody really did) - and it didn't quite live up to the trailers because of it. 

I'm glad I've seen it. But I won't rush to see it again.