9th Academy Awards · 1937
The Great Ziegfeld
Directed by Robert Z. Leonard
“The Sensation of the Century!”
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The story
At the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, sideshow barker Florenz Ziegfeld turns the tables on his more-successful neighbor Billings, and also steals his girlfriend. This pattern repeats throughout their lives, as Ziegfeld makes and loses many fortunes putting on ever-bigger, more spectacular shows
What critics & audiences say
Tomatometer71%Fresh#93 of 98 winnersIMDb6.69.2K votes#92 of 98 winners
Metacritic69/ 100#84 of 93 winners
TMDB6.3/ 10
Famous lines
…"Flo, who can drink so much milk?" and do you know what he says? "Don't drink it - bathe in it! And you will be a big success.
Anna: But Audrey, you will have many of them someday. Maybe you have to work a little, and to suffer a little, but what is that, hmm?
Audrey: I'll work - but I won't suffer.
Billie: Oh, well you're sort of a ladies' man yourself, aren't you?
Florenz: I think with you as the lady I could make Ziegfeld look like an amateur.
Men who keep books are never very happy.
Monsieur Ziegfeld, I think you're very rude. Please go! … Come back, please. Sit down. You know, you're very honest. I like you very much.
…America's a big country, Miss Held. We still have many producers in the west putting on shows for the Indians.
It'd disappoint me terribly to meet him and find him to be a fat, pudgy man with a big stomach.
Quotes via Wikiquote
Fun facts
- The 'A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody' set, nicknamed the 'Wedding Cake', reportedly cost $220,000. It was a rotating spiral 70 feet across with 175 steps, weighed 100 tons, and was shot in virtually a single take.Wikipedia · Introduction
- Pat Ryan, the future First Lady Pat Nixon, worked as an extra in the film.Wikipedia · Casting
- Will Rogers was supposed to appear in the film, but he was killed in a plane crash in August 1935, so a stand-in, A.A. Trimble, played him.Wikipedia · Casting
- The project began at Universal after Ziegfeld's widow, Billie Burke, sold the rights to pay off his debts. When Universal hit financial trouble, it sold the whole production, sets included, to MGM for $300,000, keeping William Powell for My Man Godfrey.Wikipedia · Production
- Marilyn Miller and Lillian Lorraine both threatened legal action if their names were even mentioned, so their characters were renamed 'Sally Manners' and 'Audrey Dane'.Wikipedia · Casting
- Adrian's costumes took 250 tailors and seamstresses six months to sew, using 50 pounds of silver sequins and 12 yards of white ostrich plumes.Wikipedia · Costumes
- At just over three hours, The Great Ziegfeld was the longest talking film of its time, and its final cost of over $2 million made it MGM's most expensive film since the silent Ben-Hur.Wikipedia · Critical response at the time of release
- Luise Rainer's Best Actress win for playing Anna Held made The Great Ziegfeld the first musical in history to win an Academy Award for one of its cast members.Wikipedia · Critical response at the time of release
- Olympic silver-medal wrestler Nat Pendleton, who had appeared with William Powell in The Thin Man, was cast as the circus strongman Eugen Sandow.Wikipedia · Casting
- The film is occasionally cited as a 'prime example of the Academy's fallibility', with some arguing that Mr. Deeds Goes to Town was more deserving of Best Picture that year.Wikipedia · Critical re-evaluation