Improving On Ziegfeld's Past

Glitter or a Gutter Waits For a Next Ziegfeld Girl

Did MGM think they could recreate Ziegfeld Follies better than he was able to create them? I’m suspecting so based on Ziegfeld Girl, what with its He was good, but come and see us top him. Implicit to every music revue was boast that what Broadway sold you for six dollars a seat could be had from movies for seventy-five cents. Bargain shopping for entertainment was everyone’s pastime, ultimate win to ones who nested home with their radios. Ziegfeld Girl promised a moon not tendered since a first Ziegfeld story from 1936, well recalled if not revived by 1941. No need for that where Metro could improve upon it. Ziggy was long gone, him since just a name, now an offscreen divinity (we never see “Ziegfeld” himself in Ziegfeld Girl). Wasn’t it settled that films were doing a better job at what Ziegfeld and others of Broadway did? Simple enough to kid heart-landers who never experienced a Great White Way. Others saw stage recital recorded by cameras as static tableau it was. That much had not changed since early talkies. Ziegfeld Girl is set in the 20’s, yet nothing about it suggests the 20’s, except references to Prohibition. Weakest sections are where they try to dazzle us with “production.” A thing can be colossal as you please on a screen and still look punk beside seeing a same done live. I watched Tony Martin serenading a hundred showgirls in Ziegfeld Girl and wanted him to quit and go home. Even Judy Garland looks arch trying to headline one after other elephantine numbers, these far from what she did best in films.

I submit Lana Turner as a best thing about Ziegfeld Girl. Anyone who calls Lana a “bad actress” misses the point. She was, in fact, a master at her very particular craft. But let’s be stingy and say it was mere “instinct,” like a thirsty dog locating a water dish, except no, for why is Turner so good as others frankly fall down? And yet if any had asked her to explain how/why, I’m not sure she could have. Maybe that is because people like Lana Turner were born understanding the fundamentals of melodrama and how best to play it. She knew a right level to rise to, and not go beyond. As cast-mates lay too heavy a hand at times, she floats above the morass and never forgets her art is all off tissue rolls. Lana finds humor in her character’s suffering, sort of a “Here’s the part where I collapse walking down the stairs after being dissolute through a third act.” Turner knew when enough was enough, wise not to push for effect beyond that. Movies were ripe fruit for only awhile after all, Ziegfeld Girl a most disposable of them. Why make an ass of yourself trying too hard? I enjoyed her best among a crowd busting humps to be dramatic. Turner makes phony-baloney a good thing. I felt her embarrassment where Minnelli whip drove (with Lana driving) a shriek culminate to Kirk Douglas' blow-off in The Bad and The Beautiful, where James Stewart, and then Ian Hunter, doing approximate same in Ziegfeld Girl are fly specks to a girl who knew she was Lana Turner and that fresh men would be along sooner than a next street car.

Norma Shearer Extends Helping Hand To Mae Busch

Ziegfeld Girl is actually a threesome, “All-Star” by way of Judy Garland (first-billed of the trio), Hedy Lamarr, her name above Turner’s for no good reason, other than Ziegfeld Girl being Lana-try-out for undisputed leads, and boy, does she pass. Garland is seen and heard to frank disadvantage, always more effective where song arose from situation, Judy advancing drama via longing lyrics, as in Will Andy Hardy ever love me?, or Why won’t the Boy Next Door look my way? Utter sincerity and sometime catch in words, “Oh no, John, I don’t hate you, I just hate basketball.” That reads silly, but she made it Shakespeare. Hammering a number on a crowded stage is not my notion of Garland used best. The can-do-anything as applied to this girl went but so far. Judy was as delicate a mechanism as any great star. Of Hedy Lamarr, I will say less. A good thing she was inventing modern technology at home, so there would be something for us to applaud. Lamarr said MGM just wanted her to “look dumb, and act stupid.” In Ziegfeld Girl at least, she delivers. Not to be harsh though, because Lamarr’s is a bad-conceived part, the sort imposed on her, and us, in belief she would at least be something to look at, but hold: the real Ziegfeld had Louise Brooks, that enough to beat Leo’s time no matter a depth of competition. Some would say the most arresting Ziegfeld girl(s) are ones backstage, Eve Arden and Mae Busch most prominent. Yes, Mae Busch, as in deserved italics. I read of Mae being charity casting at MGM by the late 30’s, Norma Shearer notably kind to the cast-off. Back caption on the still at above left reads in part: "Mae Busch, who starred in motion pictures long before the talkies arrived, is making a screen comeback with the aid of Norma Shearer, who helped her obtain the role of Madame LaMotte in "Marie Antoinette," in which Miss Shearer plays the leading role." Ziegfeld Girl, however, gives Mae a real part, the last of substance as fate had it, with tart lines even, if not enough of them. Who could have known then that Mae Busch would be such a meaningful name today? (at least among Laurel-Hardy followers)

MGM Either Cut This Portion of Ziegfeld Girl, Or I Slept Through It

Irksome to me is all of men in Ziegfeld Girl being such horse arses. Why should Hedy give up potential stardom to salve sensitivity of loser ball-chain Philip Dorn? Their arguments, one accent pitted against another, gets tedious fast. Then there is Charles Winninger, too vocal in best of times, as Clueless Dad dragging Judy down, a tempo impediment where I longed for him to exit Ziegfeld Girl and stay gone. James Stewart is Lana’s whiny boyfriend who wants her to marry him instead of becoming a Ziegfeld star. Easy choice!, which Turner makes until down-and-outness renders simper-Jim preferable to dipso death rattles. Occurs to me that Stewart wasn't inducted a moment too soon. He may have needed the war a lot more than the war needed him, notwithstanding combat record he scored up. At least from that he came back a more persuasive player, likeable by increased leaps. Pre-fight JS may indeed be best summed up by Tex Avery in the Hollywood Steps Out cartoon cameo. Ziegfeld Girl argues, if unknowingly, for woman’s deliverance from dominance of men, as none of its trio are enhanced by anchors here, yet we’re supposed to root for these guys and hope they prevail at the end. Such was pro forma life Hollywood would impose upon heroines, and us, should we buy into it, and yet who in that industry practiced what was preached? (see Garland, Lamarr, Turner discard of husbands, and more power to them, for bulk of bread brought home was theirs, and that was/is always what tips scales). Ziegfeld Girl is had on a very nice DVD from Warners.