Main >> Entertainment & Games >> Movies--Other

 
Ziegfeld Follies

ZIEGFELD FOLLIES

[IMAGE]

CREDITS

1946, 110 minutes, Technicolor.
Producer, Arthur Freed; Director, Vincente Minnelli; Choreography, Robert Alton; Music Direction, Lennie Hayton; Cinematography, George Folsey and Charles Rosher; Art Direction, Cedric Gibbons, Merrill Pye and Jack Martin Smith.

CAST

In Order of Appearance:
William Powell, Bunin's Puppets, Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, Cyd Charisse, Esther Williams, Keenan Wynn, James Melton, Marion Bell, Victor Moore, Edward Arnold, Lucille Bremer, Fanny Brice, Hume Cronyn, William Frawley, Lena Horne, Red Skelton, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Kathryn Grayson.

SONGS

Bring On the Beautiful Girls; Bring On Those Wonderful Men by Earl Brent and Roger Edens; The Great Lady Gives An Interview by Edens and Kay Thompson; The Drinking Song from La Traviata by Verdi; This Heart of Mine; There's Beauty Everywhere by Arthur Freed and Harry Warren; Love by Ralph Blane and Hugh Martin; Limehouse Blues by Philip Braham and Douglas Furber; The Babbit and the Bromide by George and Ira Gershwin.

PLOT SYNOPSIS

"The film opens with a short prologue in heaven with Florenz Ziegfeld (William Powell), recapping his role in The Great Ziegfeld , reminiscing about his fabulous shows and musing on what it would look like to stage one with the talented star roster of MGM. From there, it swings into a series of exotic production numbers, one more spectacular than the next, interlaced with some of the most famous of vaudeville sketches. . ."
- Lawrence B. Thomas, The MGM Years

NOTES

"Though inconsistent in quality, Ziegfeld Follies was awesomely professional and never dull."
- Clive Hirschhorn, The Hollywood Musical

"It's all stupendous, terrific, colosal, practically everyone would agree. Even Zieggy."
- Variety

"Between opening and closing is packed a prodigious amount of material, some of which is frankly not deserving of the lavish treatment accorded it."
- Film Daily

"Vincente Minnelli directs an extraordinary cast in this plotless, often tedious MGM musical revue. . .the fastidious are advised to head for the lobby while Kathryn Grayson sings "There's Beauty Everywhere" against magenta foam skies."
- Pauline Kael, 5001 Nights At The Movies


CANNES FILM FESTIVAL AWARD WINNER:
Musical Comedy

Other directors who worked on segments of the film included Charles Walters, Roy Del Ruth and George Sidney.

Ziegfeld Follies was one of the top-grossing films of 1946. See Box Office Hits

[IMAGE]

Return to The Great MGM Musicals Page