Because "Ziegfeld Follies" has no book and no concrete plot, any critique on it must focus, more or less, on the individual musical numbers and comic sketches which make up its 110 scintillating minutes. Looking at these pieces today, one can't help but think of MTV or VH-1: the visuals on those stations are self-contained musical shorts, often only five or so minutes in length, while others are abstract takes on lyrics and still others complete dramas which begin and end all in roughly 10 minutes. Some numbers, like the Esther Williams water ballet or the "Traviata" opera vignette are exercises and nothing more. But "This Heart of Mine" is tone poem and romantic drama all in one fell swoop, with gorgeous ballroom turns by Fred Astaire and a Cinderella-looking Lucille Bremer. He's an elegant jewel thief who crashes a ball, but ends up being 'taken' by his beautiful prey. They do another dramatic turn in "Limehouse Blues," which is even trickier to pull off because they are both performing in Chinese makeup, and Astaire in particular is more athletic than usual: dancing close to the floor, acrobatics with a fan, cartwheels, tumbles, splits, etc. (And this is all while in his mid-40s.) But no other film, revue or otherwise, was better suited for Technicolor than this one. Of special note (after the two Astaire numbers) are Judy Garland, gorgeous in white in a campy musical press junket; Red Skelton in a sketch which allows him to become progressively inebriated; Lena Horne in a Martinique-like café' performing a soliloquy on romance; Cyd Charisse (in her MGM debut) as the ballerina in pink in the film's opening (seen again towards the film's end in soap bubbles); the only serious pairing of Astaire and Gene Kelly in a stunning tap-off; Lucille Ball, perhaps in her single most beautiful moment on film as a whip-cracking, red-headed panther tamer in pink sequins; and a finale with an early appearance by Kathryn Grayson looking very goddess-like, while being run over by amazon beauties in a world run amok with suds and soap bubbles. Not making any of this up.
Review of Ziegfeld Follies
