1.33:1 Fullscreen

MGM keeps rolling out the Best Picture award winners. A few weeks ago it was Mutiny on the Bounty, this time it’s The Great Ziegfeld . I think Ziegfeld belongs in the category of those Best Picture winners that aren’t necessarily the best films for that year (Driving Miss Daisy?? C’mon). I actually prefer Frank Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Gregory La Cava’s seminal screwball comedy My Man Godfrey (starring Ziegfeld’s own William Powell). The Great Ziegfeld al...o picked up Best Actress for Luise Rainer. She has excellent presence, some nice moments (the phone call scene, most famously), and those eyes. But for my money, I would’ve given it to Carole Lombard for My Man Godfrey. The Academy has always been a sucker for Big Emotion, and Rainer gives the audience spoonfuls of it. But then there are the well deserved Oscar Winning dance sequences by Seymour Felix.

The story follows the rise and fall of Flo Ziegfeld, broadway producer extraordinaire. We see the highs of lows of Ziegfeld’s life in “biz” and in love. It’s a Hollywood bio-pic, so you know some events will be glossed over. And the clichéd ending is, of course, completely ridiculous. But Powell’s portrayal of Ziggy tries to reflect some of the flaws in this “diamond” of a man. It’s a nice well rounded performance. If you enjoy his work, check out Criterion’s excellent DVD presentation of My Man Godfrey. And there are the Thin Man films, of course.