THE GREAT ZIEGFELD 1936

The Great Ziegfeld 1936

Like all mediums, movies can be educational. Biopics, of course, don’t try to be as factual as documentaries, but they do impart lots of information and a sense of what the subject’s life was like.

From The Great Ziegfeld, we learn there was a Florenz Ziegfeld, he did change Broadway with the Ziegfeld Follies, and he discovered great talent like Fannie Brice (Streisand played her in Funny Girl), W.C. Fields and Jazz Singer Eddie Cantor.

And then, of course, there was Irving Berlin, whose work was featured in the Follies. Maybe that was why the Great Ziegfeld was the first biopic and the second musical to win an Academy Award.

Another reason, of course, was the brilliant cast: the great William Powell in the title role, Luise Rainer (who received the Best Actress Oscar for Ziegfeld’s first wife, stage actress Anna Held, and Myrna Loy as movie actress Billie Burke (Burke’s most famous role: Good Witch Glinda in The Wizard of Oz).

Zieggy was the guy who popularized revues: a strongman, dancers, singers and novelty acts like Will Rogers, a comedian who also twirled a lasso like no one else. However, Zieggy also staged 101 musicals; the most famous were Show Boat and The Three Musketeers.

William Powell failed to win an Oscar for his portrayal of Ziegfeld, but he won the same year for My Man Godfrey. The other nominees: Gary Cooper, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town; Walter Huston and Spencer Tracy.

Paul Muni was the winner for The Story of Louis Pasteur. (The next year, Muni would play Emile Zola, which would win the next Best Picture. Muni would be nominated again, but would not win.)

Of the nine Best Picture winners, Ziegfeld and Broadway Melody seemed the weakest. That’s an unproveable opinion, because the Great Ziegfeld did win three Oscars: Best Picture, Best Actress Luise Rainer, and Best Dance Direction for A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody.

Zieggy was nominated for four more statuettes: Best Art Direction, Film Editing, and Original Screenplay. Robert Z. Leonard lost Best Director to Frank Capra for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.

The two classic near misses were George Cukor’s Romeo & Juliet, starring Norma Shearer,  Leslie Howard and John Barrymore, and Frank Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Capra won for best director, though.

The film cost $2 million to make, so Universal sold it to MGM for $300,000. Ultimately it earned $40 million.