Review of Ziegfeld Follies

MGM Technicolor musical, light on plot but big on music and comedy. It's a sort of spiritual sequel to The Great Ziegfeld, with William Powell reprising his role from that biopic as Florenz Ziegfeld. Up in Heaven, Ziegfeld looks down on Earth and reminisces (through stop motion puppetry!) about his Follies. Then he wonders what kind of show he could produce if he had access to MGM's stable of stars. From there we get nearly two hours of routines featuring these stars doing musical numbers and comedy skits. I won't bother to list all the talent or numbers. The best are Virginia O'Brien's man-crazy number, Esther Williams swimming, all the Astaire numbers (including Limehouse Blues in yellowface, beautifully staged regardless of controversy), and Judy Garland's fun "The Great Lady Has an Interview." The best musical number of them all is easily "The Babbitt And The Bromide" with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. The worst is probably Lena Horne's forgettable piece. The comedy skits are all pretty corny. I didn't laugh once. The main reason to see this, besides the stars and the tunes, is that it's a beautiful-looking picture, filmed in glorious Technicolor with lovely costumes and sets. A visual delight with some fine musical numbers. Just don't get hung up on the lack of plot.