Watch Ziegfeld Girl For Free

To me, this movie is perfection.

Good movie but grossly overrated

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

"Gloriously vulgar," says the book "The MGM Story," and that's as good a description as any of this enormous MGM musical, directed (rather anonymously) by Robert Z. Leonard, who had helmed "The Great Ziegfeld," with musical numbers--which, typically for him, could never be contained on an actual stage--by Busby Berkeley. Though set in the 1920s, when the Follies reigned, the costumes are thoroughly 1941, and the songs--including Roger Edens' "Minnie from Trinidad," which could never have been a Twenties tune--sound thoroughly contemporary. It's a long film by 1941 MGM standards, and that's to contain acres of story about three Ziegfeld girls: the nice one (Garland) who loves her dad and limits her romantic life to chaste chocolate malts with Jackie Cooper; the glamorous one (Lamarr) who's mooning over Philip Dorn while considering an affair with Tony Martin, who's married to Rose Hobart, who has one nice scene; and the weak, fast-living one (Turner), who drinks her way to the bottom. Her boyfriend, Jimmy Stewart, is oddly cast, in a sort of Cagney role; he's fine, but the fistfights and Brooklynite dese-dem-dose readings don't fit him that well. Capable character actors loom everywhere, from Ian Hunter to Charles Winninger to Eve Arden, the dialog's crisp and idiomatic, and the MGM morality--good things happen to good people, essentially--is amusingly pronounced. Not a great flick by any means, but a prime example of what lavish, diverting mass entertainment looked like in 1941.

My title comes from a famous sarcastic quote of Hedy Lamarr on the formula for being glamorous.Unfortunately, she doesn't do a whole lot more in this film, while serving as part of the abundant eye candy. While making this film by day, she was doing much more important things in her spare time. She was working on her premier invention: a frequency-hopping spread spectrum radio-controlled torpedo guidance system, which she hoped would be her most important contribution to the war effort. Unfortunately, the US Navy decided to shelve it until many years later, after her patent rights ran out. It has since become the basis of much of present high tech communication devices! Born Hedwig Kiesler, in Vienna, she was signed by Louis B. Mayer while on route from London to NYC, as she was trying to escape her very controlling older husband and the dark cloud of Nazism. He changed her name to Lamarr in remembrance of the early, but self-destructive, sensational film and dance star of the 'roaring' 20s: Barbara La Marr. Like Hedy, Barbara had frequently been promoted as 'the most beautiful woman in the world'. Mayer hoped to convince the American public that Hedy deserved her European reputation as such. Many swallowed his build up, but I've never been impressed that she is unique. Fortunately, Hedy lacked Barbara's destructive addictions. However, her film career was not all that busy nor distinguished. I only remember her in her much later role as Delilah, and as Clark Gable's extramarital temptation in "Boomtown". Lana Turner's character, as a gorgeous Ziegfeld girl who becomes an alcoholic and ends up on skid row, presumably dying of her abusive addictions soon after the curtain closes, can be thought of as a stand in for Barbara La Marr's life.What a waste to have cast Dan Dailey simply as a tipsy sleazy prize fighter looking to prey upon a down and out Lana! Although signed by MGM in 1940 after an early career in vaudeville and Broadway musicals, he was mostly cast in supporting non-musical roles, even in musicals such as the present film, and often by other studios.It wasn't until after the war, that Fox picked him up and immediately cast him as the lead with Betty Grable in their highest grossing film of the year "Mother Wore Tights" He became Betty's favorite costar, having the most similar background and talents. He also costarred in a number of other musicals in the early 50s without Betty.Charles Winninger, who plays Judy Garland's aging vaudeville father and musical coach, was an even more accomplished ex-vaudeville and Broadway player, of the previous generation. He had played in the real Ziegfeld follies. His most famous Broadway role(and in the '36 film) was 'Cap't Andy' in "Showboat".He most often played humorous/cantankerous old men, sometimes with a bit of his musical talent thrown in, as in this film and in the later Tchnicolor "Broadway Rhythm". You are perhaps most likely to remember him in his humorous role as 'Pop' Frake, with his prize pig, in the 1945 Rogers and Hammerstein musical "State Fair". But, I most like his role in the musical comedy "Pot O'Gold", also released in '41, and also costarring Jimmy Stewart.There are 3 lavish Busby Berkeley-directed musical productions,all of which include a segment of a parade of girls in various bizarrely-ornamented outlandish costumes. These productions, especially, cry out for Technicolor filming. Stingy MGM could have filmed just these production segments in color. Afterall, the first part of "The Wizard of Oz" was filmed in B&W!..Tony Martin has a singing segment in each stage production, and sings even more beautifully than in other films I've seen. ... The long Trinidad-themed production was actually composed of several segments, including a bizarre fashion show, a Spanish dance, and Tony singing, before getting to Judy's best effort at mimicking Fox's new Latin sensation:Carmen Miranda, in her "Minnie from Trinidad" number. She is hoisted up and down by a bevy of men, on a platform supported by a spoke-like cluster of long wooden poles, and backed by many dancers in fancy Trinidad costumes... Large spiral staircases are featured in parts of the 2 other productions, giving the impression of descent from or accent to heaven. In the finale, this illusion is enhanced by a dark starry background. This last scene was recycled from the previous "The Great Ziegfeld" and the spiral structure looks remarkably like the one in the finale of " 'Til the Clouds Roll By", made a few years later.The screenplay is mostly fun in the first half, with Lana and Hedy looking their most ravishing. But Jimmy Stewart, Lana and Dan Dailey often imparted a depressing, sinister, cast to the second half, as Lana's character gradually descends into material greed, alcoholism, skid row, and near death. For a good detailed account of the screen play , I suggest the review entitled "Waiter, a stack of wheats for the lady". On the whole, this is another Judy Garland movie.

There is little that I could add to most of these reviews in terms of judging the quality of the movie.However, a couple of minor points have been missed.For one thing, one reviewer, who compared Tony Martin unfavorably to Frank S. and Dick Haymes, is comparing apples to oranges. Tony Martin was a relic of the 1930s in his classical singing style; it was already becoming obsolete by the time this movie was completed. By contrast, Frank and Dick Haymes were crooners—a very different kind of singing.Several reviewers have expressed a desire to see this movie in color, because of the dazzling costumes. The thing to remember is that we're seeing the film today on very different film than what it was originally printed on. Nitrate stock—the film that was used in 1941— showed blacks that were really black, and whites that were bright white, not shades of gray. This would have produced a very different visual experience for the audiences of 1941. For those viewers, the costumes, rather than merely appearing beautiful, would have been blindingly spectacular.It is unfortunate that the original nitrate prints have almost certainly disappeared forever.

For some reason Ziegfeld Girl has been panned and patronized by the critics, when in fact it was the last of a series of glorious black & white musicals turned out in the 1930' and early 1940's and one of the best.Don't listen to the critics who say the musical numbers and the melodramatic story don't work well together. This well-directed musical does an unusually efficient job of melding them together. The "backstage" story itself is probably one of the best with more believable characters and situations than usual. I thought it better than that of the more highly rated 42ond Street. Don't listen to the hard-faced feminist doctrinaires who can't stand seeing women and men and their families portrayed as real human people instead of the social-engineered zombies they would prefer. When someone says this movie would have been been better if in color, cover your ears as if you were being subjected to a stream of blasphemous cursing. Ziegfeld Girl is a gem of sensuous, luminous, black & white cinematography. The costumes and the choreography were wonderfully designed for black and white, and both work better than those of any subsequent color musical.Jimmy Stewart got top billing in this movie, and he admittedly dominates all of the modest amount of screen time he has. But this is fourth-billed Lana Turner's movie when it comes to the dramatic side of the story. In addition to being at her most glamorous, she turns in a bravura performance as the poor kid from Flatbush rising to stardom and riches only to descend into despair and alcoholism. Hedy Lamarr, billed ahead of Lana, doesn't have much to do except to look beautiful, but she could do that better than any other actress. Nevertheless, don't listen to the critics who say she couldn't act. Check out some of her other movies, such as Dishonored Lady (see my review) and Algiers. Never mind, when the musical numbers start, the show is all Judy Garland, Tony Martin, and Busby Berkley's musical direction. Especially Judy. She has never been cuter or more charming, both in her singing and her not inconsiderable acting talent. The lovable Charles Winninger, playing her hammy, vaudevillian father, is a nice foil for Judy dramatically as well as musically. Some people have found the early musical number performed by the two the best of the show. You can listen to them! But there are plenty of other good numbers.If you would like two hours and twelve minutes of engrossing, thoroughly entertaining, glittering, spectacular entertainment as only MGM in its golden years could dish out, watch Ziegfeld Girl. They don't, couldn't, and wouldn't if they could make 'em like this any more.