Ziegfeld Follies (1945)

Note Générale:

6,6/10   

Réalisateurs:

Lemuel Ayers
Roy Del Ruth

Scénaristes:

John Murray Anderson (writer)
Lemuel Ayers (story)

Date de sortie:

8 avril 1946 (USA)

Genre:

Comedie | Musical

Accroche:

Flashing...smashing SCREEN ENTERTAINMENT! DAZZLING IN ITS BEAUTY...PACKED WITH GLORIOUS Melodies! (original print media ad - many caps)

Intrigue:

The late, great impresario Florenz Ziegfeld looks down from heaven and ordains a new revue in his grand old style. |

Plot Keywords:

Florenz Ziegfeld | Heaven | Revue | Dance | Puppetry

Récompenses:

1 win

Avis des utilisateurs:

Don't bother (and don't judge) unless you can see a good Technicolor print

Ensemble

Fred Astaire	...	Himself (in "Here's to the Ladies") / Raffles (in "This Heart of Mine") / Tai Long (in "Limehouse Blues") / Gentleman (in "The Babbit and the Bromide")
Lucille Ball	...	Herself in 'Here's to the Ladies'
Lucille Bremer	...	Princess in 'This Heart of Mine' / Moy Ling in 'Limehouse Blues'
Fanny Brice	...	Norma in 'A Sweepstakes Ticket'
Judy Garland	...	The Star in 'A Great Lady Has An Interview'
Kathryn Grayson	...	Herself in 'Beauty'
Lena Horne	...	Herself in 'Love'
Gene Kelly	...	Gentleman in 'The Babbit and the Bromide'
James Melton	...	Alfredo in scene from 'La Traviata'
Victor Moore	...	Lawyer's Client in 'Pay the Two Dollars'
Red Skelton	...	J. Newton Numbskull in 'When Television Comes'
Esther Williams	...	Herself in 'A Water Ballet'
William Powell	...	Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.
Edward Arnold	...	Lawyer in 'Pay the Two Dollars'
Marion Bell	...	Violetta in scene from 'La Traviata'

Autre(s) titre(s):

Ziegfeld Follies of 1944 (USA: Spanish title) (working title)
Ziegfeld Follies of 1946 (USA) (poster title)

Durée:

110 min

Pays:

USA

Langue:

Anglais

Couleur:

Couleur (Technicolor)

Rapport de forme:

1,37 : 1

Son:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Classification:

Australia:G | Finland:S | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved | UK:U

Lieux de tournage:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios - 10202 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA

Société:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Anecdotes:

Decca Records released a Judy Garland 78 containing two songs from the score not performed by her in the movie: "Love" (music and lyrics by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane), a fervent air which Judy sang on radio the twice in 1945, then occasionally in her 1951-52 concerts as an encore, and two times on her CBS-TV series, "The Judy Garland Show" (1963): a duet with Lena Horne from the October 13, 1963 broadcast, and a solo version telecast on March 22, 1964. The Decca flip side was the radiant ballad, "This Heart of Mine" (music by Harry Warren and Arthur Freed). Judy's two commercial cuts, arranged and conducted by Victor Young, recorded on January 26, 1945 and released on March 22, along with an alternate take of "This Heart of Mine," have been presented on her CD box set from MCA, "The Complete Decca Masters (Plus)."

Goofs:

Continuité: During the "A Great Lady Has An Interview," Judy Garland is continuously pushing her hair back out of her face during the interview portion of the scene. However, when the musical part begins her hair is firmly fixed up off of her face and stays that way until the end of the number when her dance moves have obviously loosened it up enough to start falling in her face again.

Guillemet:

[first lines]
Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.: Ah... Saturday, September twenty fifth. Another heavenly day. Ah, yes. Always a heavenly day.

Connexions:

figure dans The American Film Institute Salute to Fred Astaire (1981) (TV)

Bande son:

The Babbitt and the Bromide

Don't bother (and don't judge) unless you can see a good Technicolor print

No doubt the jaded postmodern cynical viewer will find plenty to pick apart in this fluff (facile metaphysics, etc.). That is their loss.

This is not one of the great MGM musicals, but at its best it does what great musicals do: it sweeps you along in a kaleidoscope of color, movement and sound. And because of these qualities this trifle IS art as surely as Citizen Kane or La Promesse are. Cinema is not just an art of--or forum for-- philosophy; it is an art of the color palette, and with The Ziegfeld Follies the technical forces of a great studio created a sometimes exquisite canvas to behold. Unfortunately, like many old films, the canvas is fading.

I first saw this film 20 years ago projected from an exceptional 16 millimeter print that brought out the full richness of the Technicolor cinematography. None of the video versions I've seen since have come close. The same is true for the 1949 John Ford western, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, which I saw many years ago in an unbelievably painterly 16mm Technicolor print. Prints of that film shown on the AMC network don't even come close to the richness of that print.

Its color alone is enough to make The Ziegfeld Follies visually entertaining for me, and that print I saw long ago convinces me that is one of the 10 or 20 most beautiful color films ever made. The merry go round scene (with Lucille Ball as I recall) in hot garish pink was particularly striking visually.

I contend that any film, even marginal or bad ones, made in the extinct and impossible to resurrect Technicolor process is worthy of seeing, because its very usage constitutes a lost art form in and of itself.

Like Ziegfeld Follies, middling films such as Kid Millions (1934), Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936), Jesse James (1939), Down Argentine Way (1940), The Gang's All Here (1943) and The Captain from Castile (1947) are worth seeing almost exclusively because of their amazing color schemes.

The biggest crack about "Tech," as cine buffs call it, is that it was not "realistic" color. Bogus line of reasoning, as no cinematic color process can ever be realistic in the sense of replicating human sight. OK maybe Roger Deakins came close in "Sid and Nancy." Admiring Ziegfeld Follies solely for its color may not be enough for you, but it's enough for me in our era of dreary cinematic color.