Watch Ziegfeld Follies For Free

One of my all time favorites.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

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!

This is one of the films that was great in its time, but doesn't hold up well. Not because the performances aren't great -- they are. But most of us go to a film to see a particular movie star or two, and here you have to sit through well over a dozen stars performing specialty numbers just to get to the particular stars you want to see. Nevertheless, this film does provide us with an opportunity to see some of the great MGM stars of the mid-1940s.The film opens with William Powell reprising his role as Florence Ziegfeld...but this time in heaven. He's looking down thinking about how he would put together another extravaganza if he was still earth-bound. There's a clever claymation sequence with Powell reminiscing. And then he decides to open his new production with Fred Astaire with "Bring On Those Beautiful Girls" (which includes several stars, including a lovely Lucille Ball), which is a production number that I imagine the real Ziegfeld would have loved.There's an impressive water ballet by Esther Williams. Next up is an unfunny comedy segment about telephones with Keenan Wynn, who clearly was better is somewhat dramatic roles. The mostly forgotten comedy actor Victor Moore and character actor Edward Arnold do a mildly humorous skit, which seems to mostly be about lawyers and being jostled on the subway; it's a variation on a common burlesque routine (more frequently featuring a simpleton being egged on to make noise in a quiet zone). Free Astaire and Lucille Bremer do a wonderful dance number, which is odd in that he plays a jewel thief; the number is horribly over-orchestrated (a problem throughout the film). There is a comedy routine by Fanny Brice (and Hume Cronyn and William Frawley) about winning the Irish Sweepstakes; it is a rare opportunity to see the once immensely popular Fanny Brice ("Funny Girl"), a true Ziegfeld star. If you like Lena Horne, she does a beautifully staged number, although I found it to be rather racist. The highlight for many (including me) will be the Red Skelton performance entitled "When Television Comes", popularly known as "Guzzler's Gin"; this routine, more than any other, brought Skelton fame; however, it clearly shows one of the limitations of the film: this routine used to put audiences into hysterics, but here it plays rather flat without laughter and applause...and, this is supposed to be a stage show, so those 2 elements are missing, and putting those ingredients in would have made for a much more realistic experience. Another Fred Astaire number, Chinese-themed, is hardly his best dancing, but it is the most beautifully photographed and designed part of the film; the colors and textures are stunning; and it is unique. I didn't care for the Judy Garland number; it just seemed shallow. Fred Astaire is back AGAIN with a light-hearted dance number with Gene Kelly about their friendly competition.There are a couple of problems with this DVD. First, the film really needs to be restored, The colors are no longer true...for example, too much red in the skin tones.A second problem, at least for me, is that there is no plot. None at all. It's "just" a succession of musical and comedy numbers.Nevertheless, despite it faults, this is a rather remarkable film highlighting as it does the great MGM stars of the time. Ziegfeld would have been proud.

The motto for the MGM studios was: "Do it big, do it right, and give it class!" MGM also boasted that it had "more stars than there are in the heavens!" This 1946 musical certainly lives up to both of those statements. A film without plot, ZIEGFELD FOLLIES is more of a film revue, which has been organized from the legendary Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld (William Powell) from Heaven, who, yearning for the good old days of Broadway, wishes to put on just one more of his legendary Follies. The segments mix both comedy and music, with so many great MGM stars. Fred Astaire stars in four segments; in "The Babbitt and the Bromide," he shares the screen with Gene Kelly, then an MGM newcomer, and it's a treat to see these two dance legends in one of only two screen pairings. In "The Interview" (my favorite segment), Judy Garland proves what an expert comedienne she is when she plays an actress grandly giving a press conference. Lena Horne sings a stunning and sensuous performance of the song "Love." Hilarious comedy is provided by Fanny Brice, Keenan Wynn, and Red Skelton, among others. In addition to the performers, the film is a showcase for the technical elements, with rich Technicolor, and lavish sets and costumes. The music is beautifully played by the MGM orchestra (brought to life by a gorgeous stereophonic soundtrack on the DVD). Think of this as a live-action FANTASIA (Disney's 1940 classic). For those who want a sampler of what MGM could do, this is a good start. Recommended.

Although Florenz Ziegfeld only ever worked on the stage, his influence over Hollywood in its golden age was considerable. Not only were many of the early talkie stars Ziegfeld veterans, his extravagant musical numbers also left their mark in the work of Busby Berkeley or the "ballet" sequences of 40s and 50s musicals. His shows really epitomised grand style for its own sake. So when MGM wanted to splash out on a lavish burst of post-war indulgence, what better than a modern day re-imagining of a Ziegfeld Follies revue, just as the great man might have envisaged it himself? Like the original shows after which they are named, Ziegfeld Follies presents a sequence of acts with no linking plot, only a continuous aim to dazzle and entertain in a variety of ways. After a rather twee preamble with William Powell as a heavenly Ziegfeld, interspersed with some nice puppetry, the opening musical number closely follows the style and ethos of the Follies, with row upon row of elegant chorus girls bedecked in over-the-top period costumes. Its call of "Here's to the Girls" is a clear homage to Ziegfeld's own "Glorifying the American Girl". Directed in a somewhat presentational style by George Sidney, it takes us back to the experience of seeing an original Follies from thirty years earlier. The second number however features something Ziegfeld could never have done justice on the stage – Esther Williams doing her mermaid ballet act. From here on the style is consistently cinematic, and it becomes clear this is more than anything else a display of modern MGM talent and the scope of musical cinema.Nowhere is this more evident than in the five numbers directed by Vincente Minnelli. Minnelli, an incredibly musically sensitive filmmaker, was able probably better than anyone else to make the camera part of the choreography. He will pull backwards so that dancers appear from the foreground, sliding softly into view without moving much themselves. There are moments in the drinking song from La Traviata where branches are whipped on and off the screen to balance out the shot as the dancing couple turns, a move only making sense in the context of the movie frame that would be ineffective on a stage. In the final number, "Beauty", most of the performers do not even move at all, the lens slinking rhythmically over them. However Minnelli is also sensible enough to know when to settle down and simply let a dance play out, but even here the specific angle and composition are delicately precise. Cinematic techniques such as close-ups on jewellery in "This Heart of Mine", or the shots in "Limehouse Blues" from inside the bric-a-brac shop allow a certain intimate storytelling not normally possible in dance, and even make these two numbers rather poignant. I should point out by the way that not too much should be read into Mr Minnelli's association with the excellence of these segments, since it follows that as MGM's best musical director he would be assigned to the best and biggest numbers anyway.The handful of non-musical comedy sketches are by far the weakest elements of Ziegfeld Follies. They feature some pretty fine comedy actors, with newcomers like Keenan Wynn and Red Skelton alongside old hands like Victor Moore and Fanny Brice, representing one of the few links to the original Follies. But no matter how well played it is, each sketch runs as little more than a handful of feeble jokes stretched to breaking point, plus a lot of face-pulling. I think the main problem is that it's movie humour, the sort that only works as a comic relief subplot when woven into a larger narrative. These film writers weren't used to the sketch format. As an example of the difference, Keenan Wynn was excellent when he turned up for two minutes in The Clock (also 1945), but here he is an embarrassment. By the way, the camp Texan in Wynn's sketch is Grady Dutton. He had bit parts in dozens of pictures over the years, most of them fleeting but always memorable.Perhaps unsurprisingly, the few comedy moments that really do work are those which take place within musical numbers. "The Great Lady has an Interview" is one of the earliest examples of Judy Garland's comedic talents, while "The Babbitt and the Bromide" shows Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly at their most playful (as well as featuring some great sight-gags with that horse statue in the background). Of course part of the secret of these numbers is that they merge the comedy with the glamour and musicality. But they both also happen to be numbers which satirize the movie industry itself. Judy Garland's act is a gentle poke at dramatic actresses (especially Greer Garson) moving to more raunchy roles, and she has great fun playing up the self-absorbed luvvy stereotype. Astaire and Kelly lampoon their own screen images, slyly referencing Kelly's status as an up-and-comer, and even dancing a little waltz together (although, if you look closely, being very careful not to quite hold each other's hands properly). Ziegfeld Follies once again proves itself to be a product of and about the cinema. The title and outline may be Ziegfeld's, but the spirit belongs to MGM.