IMDb RATING
6.4/10
3.6K
YOUR RATING
The late, great impresario Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. looks down from Heaven and ordains a new revue in his grand old style.The late, great impresario Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. looks down from Heaven and ordains a new revue in his grand old style.The late, great impresario Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. looks down from Heaven and ordains a new revue in his grand old style.
- Awards
- 1 win & 1 nomination
- Directors
- Lemuel Ayers(segment Love)
- Roy Del Ruth(segment A Sweepstakes Ticket)
- Robert Lewis(segment Number Please)
- Writers
- David Freedman(segment A Sweepstakes Ticket)
- Hugh Martin(segment Love)
- Ralph Blane(segment Love)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe horse ridden by Lucille Ball is The Lone Ranger (1949)'s Silver. When Life magazine showed a photo of Silver in his pink feathers and bows with the headline 'Silver is a Sissy', the horse's trainer threatened to sue MGM for defamation of Silver's character.
- GoofsTowards the end of the "This Heart of Mine" number, as Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer begin to dance back to the palace, dancers in the background (screen left) clearly are struggling to stabilize some of the antler-tree props.
- Quotes
Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.: Children play with the dreams of tomorrow. And old men play with the memories of yesterday.
- Crazy creditsZiegfeld Follies credits are in alphabetical order. That is why "Bunin" comes before "Charisse"
- Alternate versionsThere is an Italian edition of this film on DVD, "FOLLIE DI ZIEGFELD", re-edited in double version (1.33:1 and 1.78:1) with the contribution of film historian Riccardo Cusin. This version is also available for streaming on some platforms.
- ConnectionsEdited into Hollywood: The Dream Factory (1972)
- SoundtracksHere's to the Girls
Music by Roger Edens
Lyrics by Arthur Freed
Sung by Fred Astaire, chorus
Danced by Cyd Charisse, Lucille Ball, chorus
Featured review
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.
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.
helpful•207
- kev-22
- Oct 2, 2000
- How long is Ziegfeld Follies?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Ziegfeld Follies of 1944
- Filming locations
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $3,240,816 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 50 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content