I really wish this film was in color as it includes some truly stunning scenes of art direction and gorgeous costumes! Sigh. Well, I’ll try to satisfy myself with the black-and-white version and point out a couple of interesting facts about this week’s movie The Great Ziegfeld (1936, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) before I head off to bed to get some shut eye so I can be ready to immerse myself in the delights of medieval literature for the rest of the week (I’ll be at an academic conference, not locked away with stacks of old books—although, that also sounds like a viable weekend pastime…).

The Great Ziegfeld is the second Best Picture winner to be based on true events (following in the wake of Mutiny on the Bounty, so we have consecutive reality tales—plus, I just can’t give up those maritime puns!). Based on the true story of the life of Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., the Broadway show master with a reputation for “glorifying” women, this film is a comedy, a tragedy, a love story, and a musical all at once. And it’s really, really long. Nominated for seven Academy Awards (including Art Direction, Directing, Writing (Original Story), and Film Editing), the film took home three: Outstanding Production, Best Actress, and Best Dance Direction for “A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody.” I am not kidding. There really was a category for dance.

Luise Rainer in the famous telephone scene which perhaps secured her Oscar win

Folks at the awards ceremony that year might have thought more jesting was going on when Luise Rainer won for Best Actress. In a year that saw the commencement of the Actor/Actress in a Supporting Role categories (thanks to the somewhat tricky situation of three men from the same film being tapped for the same Best Actor award the previous year), most people felt that the newcomer should not have won the honor because 1) her role was more of a supporting one, even though studio execs labeled it as leading, and 2) this was her first nomination, and the category was full of more established stars who hadn’t won Oscars yet. Sounds like Hollywood politics to me. Anyhow, Rainer showed them all, becoming the first person to win back-to-back Oscars in a category when she won in 1938 for her role in The Good Earth. Want to read something funny? Go research Rainer’s feelings about her Oscar wins. She didn’t really take to the Hollywood lifestyle and so also didn’t appreciate Tinseltown’s greatest award. Rumor is that she even used one of the statuettes as a doorstop and then gave it to some men who helped her move from Switzerland to London! Oh my. Personally, I think she is quite good in The Great Ziegfeld—a touch immature, a hair overdramatic, just flighty enough to seem realistic—and very sympathetic. Oscar well deserved, in my mind.

Luise Rainer, about 100 years old here, with her two Oscars.

Back to the man himself, though. Doubtless, many original viewers of The Great Ziegfeld had attended a Ziegfeld Folly in person and felt the movie to be a titillating mix of biographical sketch and Folly remix extravaganza. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Ziegfeld Follies (as I was before my research), here is a brief crash course. The Follies began in 1907 as the brainchild of Ziegfeld, who imagined a Broadway show that was simple and relaxed enough to fill the summertime schedule. But when the Follies turned out to be a smash hit, they also became outrageously extravagant and flashy. The big draw of Ziegfeld’s Follies were the Ziegfeld Girls, the chorus girls whom Ziegfeld had meticulously chosen and groomed for his productions. Many of these women’s Hollywood acting careers were launched by their participation in Ziegfeld’s shows, and several girls were even nominated for Academy Awards. I confess, I totally got distracted in looking up information about these women. Their lives are fascinating! Did you know that Delores Costello, a Ziegfeld girl, was Drew Barrymore’s grandma (Drew perhaps has the most impressive acting pedigree in Hollywood, I think)? And here’s a fun connection with another BP winner: Paulette Goddard, who was also a member of Ziegfeld’s troupe, was married to Erich Maria Remarque, the German veteran who wrote All Quiet on the Western Front! It is such a small world.

But the man himself, Flo Ziegfeld, was just a piece of work. I was alternately impressed by his wit and disappointed in his mistakes—yet cheered for his success for the entire duration of the movie (again, that was a really long time). In a way, Ziegfeld’s story is America’s, which is probably why he is so easy to root for. He’s up one moment and then down the next, but he’s always optimistic that the next idea will work out spectacularly. Optimism might be halfway to success. I think it was in Ziggy’s mind. For more on Ziegfeld’s real life, check out his reprinted obituary from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0321.html.

For more detailed thoughts on The Great Ziegfeld and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!