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Ziegfeld Follies (1946)
Released By: MGM Home Entertainment   Rating: Not Rated   In Theaters: N/A
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Studio: MGM Home Entertainment
Genre: Musical
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Language: English
Official Website: N/A
Theatrical Release: N/A
Home Video Release: N/A
Cast: Fannie Brice, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, Red Skelton, William Powell
Published ID: 268
UPC: 012569678590,
Plot: The presence of William Powell as legendary showman Flo Ziegfeld at the beginning of Ziegfeld Follies might lead an impressionable viewer from thinking that this 1946 film is a Technicolor sequel to the 1936 Oscar-winning The Great Ziegfeld. Not so: this is more in the line of an all-star revue, much like such early talkies as Hollywood Revue of 1929 and Paramount on Parade. We meet a grayed, immaculately garbed Ziegfeld in Paradise (his daily diary entry reads Another heavenly day), where he looks down upon the world and muses over the sort of show he'd be putting on were he still alive. Evidently Ziegfeld's shade has something of a celestial conduit to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, since his dream show is populated almost exclusively by MGM stars. Vincente Minnelli is given sole directorial credit at the beginning of the film, though many of the individual acts were helmed by other hands. The Bunin puppets offer a tableau depicting anxious theatregoers piling into a Broadway theatre, as well as caricatures of Ziegfeld's greatest stars. The opening number, Meet the Ladies, spotlights a whip-wielding (!) Lucille Ball, a bevy of chorus girls dressed as panthers, and, briefly, Margaret O'Brien. Kathryn Grayson and The Ziegfeld Girls perform There's Beauty Everywhere. Victor Moore and Edward Arnold show up in an impressionistically staged adaptation of the comedy chestnut Pay the Two Dollars. Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer (a teaming which evidently held high hopes for MGM) dance to the tune of This Heart is Mine. Number Please features Keenan Wynn in an appallingly unfunny rendition of an old comedy sketch (performed far better as Alexander 2222 in Abbott and Costello's Who Done It?) Lena Horne, strategically placed in the film at a juncture that could be edited out in certain racist communities, sings Love. Red Skelton stars in the film's comedy highlight, When Television Comes-which is actually Skelton's classic Guzzler's Gin routine (this sequence was filmed late in 1944, just before Red's entry into the armed services). Astaire and Bremer return for a lively rendition of Limehouse Blues. Judy Garland, lampooning every Hollywood glamour queen known to man, stops the show with The Interview. Even better is the the historical one-time-only teaming of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly in The Babbitt and the Bromide. The excellence of these sequence compensate for the mediocrity of The Sweepstakes Ticket, wherein Fanny Brice screams her way through a dull comedy sketch with Hume Cronyn (originally removed from the US prints of Ziegfeld Follies, this sequence was restored for television). Excised from the final release print (pared down to 110 minutes, from a monumental 273 minutes!) was Judy Garland's rendition of Liza, a duet featuring Garland and Mickey Rooney, and a Baby Snooks sketch featuring Fanny Brice, Hanley Stafford and B. S. Pully. A troubled and attenuated production, Ziegfeld Follies proved worth the effort when the film rang up a $2 million profit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
IDDateTimeTitleReviewHelpfulVotesTotalVotes
Ziegfeld Follies
Added 9/8/2009
A number of the popular stars of the '40's (Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Frank Sinatra, Red Skelton, etc.) are given invidivdual performance numbers in this film. If you're interested in that period, you would enjoy the flim. If you're more familiar with more modern entertainers, you might not find it as interesting.
0 out of 1 people found this helpful.
What a Masterpiece!
Added 8/29/2009
I grew up watching my Grandparent's VHS copy so was thrilled to see that Ziegfeld Follies is now on DVD! The cover is quite different to that of the Bill Collins VHS but the quality of the film itself is remarkable. Watch it on Widescreen if you can, it is absolutely beautiful!
Not only are there songs like 'This Heart of Mine' by Fred Astaire (with gorgeous choreographing to match), 'Love' by Lena Horne and a catchy up-tempo number by Judy Garland, but you'll also see some catchy comedy songs like 'The Babbit and the Bromide' with Gene Kelly, 'Bring On Those Wonderful Men' (Virginia O'Brien) and some hilarious skits starring Fanny Brice and Red Skelton. This really is a true gem for fans of all ages!!! 10/10.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
Thanks to the miracles of DVD
Added 8/18/2009
Completely forgettable films can be resurrected and beautifully restored. Wow, is this awful. While not uniformly disastrous, it is boring, unfunny, poorly acted, over-produced, weirdly lit, and musically lame. (Except for the glorious La Traviata, but that is badly sung and bizarrely staged.) There is some good dancing (and some frightfully bad dancing) and a weak laugh or two in a couple of comedy sections, but I will be passing this along somewhere.....just gotta figure out who!

I bought this as an Astaire fan. He is certainly has all the highlights in this, but small highlights they are. Not worth much.
0 out of 3 people found this helpful.
An un-movie
Added 7/23/2009
This isn't a movie at all, by any usual definition. Rather it's a series of grossly over-produced musical and dance extravaganzas, interspersed with stale and mostly un-funny comedy bits. If you like Hollywood excess at its most excessive, this is for you.

For decades Flo Ziegfeld dominated the pretty girl, funny men area of show business, presenting his shows at the New Amsterdam theater on 42nd Street, just off Broadway and Times Square. Among his comic stars were W.C. Fields, Will Rogers and Fanny Brice. By all accounts, however, what marked his shows were pretty show girls in very fancy costumes. However, there were serious constraints: the theater stage was not all that big. Hollywood had no such constraint; thus, the movie presents a Follies that never existed and never could have existed: underwater ballet, instant costume changes impossible in live theater, enormous sets that fit only on a sound stage.

I repeat: if you like excess, the movie is for you. But it ain't what Florenz Ziegfeld did.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
Zegfeld Follies
Added 4/22/2009

Loaded with Tons of Talent - Why don't they make great Musicals, and Comedy scetches like this anymore..Thank you Hollywood for a great Movie.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
Ziegfeld Follies
Added 9/8/2009
A number of the popular stars of the '40's (Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Frank Sinatra, Red Skelton, etc.) are given invidivdual performance numbers in this film. If you're interested in that period, you would enjoy the flim. If you're more familiar with more modern entertainers, you might not find it as interesting.
0 out of 1 people found this helpful.
What a Masterpiece!
Added 8/29/2009
I grew up watching my Grandparent's VHS copy so was thrilled to see that Ziegfeld Follies is now on DVD! The cover is quite different to that of the Bill Collins VHS but the quality of the film itself is remarkable. Watch it on Widescreen if you can, it is absolutely beautiful!
Not only are there songs like 'This Heart of Mine' by Fred Astaire (with gorgeous choreographing to match), 'Love' by Lena Horne and a catchy up-tempo number by Judy Garland, but you'll also see some catchy comedy songs like 'The Babbit and the Bromide' with Gene Kelly, 'Bring On Those Wonderful Men' (Virginia O'Brien) and some hilarious skits starring Fanny Brice and Red Skelton. This really is a true gem for fans of all ages!!! 10/10.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
Thanks to the miracles of DVD
Added 8/18/2009
Completely forgettable films can be resurrected and beautifully restored. Wow, is this awful. While not uniformly disastrous, it is boring, unfunny, poorly acted, over-produced, weirdly lit, and musically lame. (Except for the glorious La Traviata, but that is badly sung and bizarrely staged.) There is some good dancing (and some frightfully bad dancing) and a weak laugh or two in a couple of comedy sections, but I will be passing this along somewhere.....just gotta figure out who!

I bought this as an Astaire fan. He is certainly has all the highlights in this, but small highlights they are. Not worth much.
0 out of 3 people found this helpful.
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