Glorifying the American Girl (1929)

It’s nice to hear Mary Eaton speak frankly to her boyfriend (a dreamy Edward Crandall) about wanting to live a little and see what she can do before settling down and raising children. He’s visibly hurt, but not petulant or insulting (like every boyfriend/husband in Ziegfeld Girl and The Dolly Sisters). He does wait for her and seems genuinely supportive of her success…, but eventually settles for available girl-next-door Gloria Shea — who actually is treated pretty badly by the film: abandoned and hit by a car! That’s what chasing love gets you….

Eaton discovers her beau has moved on just before she goes out for the finale in the Follies, and you see the emotions hit her as she struggles under the weight of an enormous headpiece that cascades around her like a fountain. Ok, so it’s not exactly deep, but at least she doesn’t die of alcohol poisoning or get slapped around like in the exploitational Ziegfeld Girl.
…more about Glorifying the American Girl

This Island Earth (1955)

Two attractive scientists are kidnapped and taken on a joyride to another planet by their alien employer. His home world is so desperately out of resources they need the inferior humans to help them improve their power supply. But time is running out and it may be too late!

This first encounter with an alien species is an acid trip in vivid 3-strip Technicolor, but dry and unemotional like an Arthur C Clark epic. The actors stand around explaining things to each other while molecule sculptures blink and rotate like a moderne chandelier run amok. A large psychedelic console unit, the Interocitor, is a videophone, autopilot, and death ray all-in-one. At one point the spaceship is attacked by triangles that hurl sparkling balls at them, but they escape. Then they are attacked by a deranged slave bug, but they escape. Etc, etc. Occasionally the aliens strike a pose like the Abraham Lincoln statue, making them seem aloof and too preoccupied to get emotionally involved.

There aren’t any surprises here and that’s the surprise. It’s oddly refreshing to watch a sci-fi drama without the cliches, no sassy mouthed princess…, no wild west gunslinger or WW1 pilot…, no druids…. What you get is pure ’50s science fiction adventure that slowly unfolds from the mundane, to the mysterious, to the monumental as our stunned Earthling tourists witness the death of an alien civilization!

Ziegfeld Follies (1946)

So…, MGM plans to make a huge sequel: a new Follies to feature the greatest stars and directors in Hollywood! Fred Astaire verses Gene Kelly! Judy Garland at her finest! Ravishing Ziegfeld Girl Lucille Ball! Fannie Bryce, Red Skelton, and Virginia O’Brien appear for comedy! An underwater Esther Williams number, and Cyd Charisse in a soap bubble ballet!

PRODUCER: We’ve signed William Powell to play Ziegfeld again!
MINION: But Sir, Florenz Ziegfeld died at the end of The Great Ziegfeld.
PRODUCER: Right! So…, we’ll open with William Powell in Heaven putting together the next Follies!
MINION: Do you think moviegoers will believe Ziegfeld went to Heaven, Sir?

The Great Ziegfeld (1936)

Coney Island’s sideshows had PT Barnum… Monte Carlo’s Ballet Russe had Diagalev… and Broadway had Florenz Ziegfeld Jr, a huckster, a gambler, and a womanizer of exquisite taste who introduced his signature showgirls, brought vaudeville comedians uptown, and staged elaborate productions which made legends of composers such as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and Jerome Kern. Ziegfeld’s Follies spanned 25 years and were patterned after the Folies Bergère in Paris where sex and exotica were mixed with topical humor, operettas, and gymnastics. The word Follies derives from the Latin word for “leaves” (foliae), connoting the idea of an outdoor venue, so it was fitting that Flo’s annual Follies were originally staged in the rooftop theaters of Manhattan’s growing skyline.
…more about The Great Ziegfeld

Cain and Mabel (1936)

Since Clark Gable became famous for punching women in films (notably Barbara Stanwyck in Night Nurse), it is worthy to note that Marion Davies gives HIM the black eye! Cain and Mabel has a cute premise: a boxer and an actress get together for the sake of publicity but secretly despise each other! Unfortunately there isn’t much spark here.

Davies is serviceable in the reluctant golddigger role with platinum hair and impossibly blue eyes that seem to have no iris at all, but she doesn’t seem particularly committed. Gable also phones it in as a one-note brute — almost a parody of his many other roles. The subplot that they’d both rather stay home and eat pork chops than act out their romance for the audiences, seems a little too real. This is one of those films that pairs up two huge stars in a mediocre script, hoping
sparks will fly with arguments and overturned ice buckets, but mostly it fizzles.

The one stunning exception comes in the third reel when Davies performs in the finale of her Broadway show. It is a jaw-dropping tableau of romantic imagery in huge puffy sleeves and fluffy white feathers. From Louis XVI wigs, to Venice canals, to flying angels, to a choir arranged to look like a pipe organ. Curving staircases, ornate bridges, miles of drapery, and a princess double-cone hat with cascading tulle…, and it just keeps coming. Thematically it steals — I mean, pays homage to half-a-dozen depression era musicals like Shall We Dance, and even borrows the violin song from Gold Diggers of 1933. At the center of it all Davies struggles to keep a relaxed smile, like a bride statuette on a vast wedding cake so ornately decorated with white icing there is no room left for the groom!