"Ұлы Зигфелд: Өмір және сахна"

1936 film by Robert Zigler Leonard

The film was shot at MGM Studios in Culver City, California mostly in the latter half of 1935 under a budget of US$1,500,000 (US$ in dollars), produced by Hunt Stromberg. The cost exceeded US$2 million (US$ in dollars) by the end of the production in early 1936, exorbitant for the period, and it was MGM's most expensive film to date after Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925). The principal cinematography was shot by Oliver T. Marsh, and George J. Folsey and Karl Freund were brought in to shoot the Ziegfeld Roof numbers. Although it has some accuracies, The Great Ziegfeld takes many key liberties with Ziegfeld's life and the history of the Follies, resulting in many inaccuracies. The Great Ziegfeld marked Rainer's second Hollywood film role after Escapade (also with Powell). Fanny Brice appears as a comedian in the abridged song sequence "My Man" and played an effective version of herself in addition to her routine comic role as the funny girl. Nat Pendleton, a freestyle wrestler who had won the silver medal at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp and had appeared alongside Powell in The Thin Man (1934), was cast as the circus strongman Eugen Sandow. Billie Burke objected to her role being cast with another actress (Myrna Loy) since she was also an actress under contract to the studio and could play herself, but the producers concluded that at that point she was not a big enough star to play herself in The Great Ziegfeld. However, according to Emily W. Leider, Burke was not keen on playing her younger self and says that Billie Burke's biographer stated that Miriam Hopkins would have been her first choice to play her part, not Loy. Burke herself worked as technical consultant, and although she did not object to Marilyn Miller performing a number, she was influential in the studio's refusal to give her the higher billing and salary she had demanded, which led to Miller walking away from the film. Both Miller and Lillian Lorraine threatened legal action if their names were so much as mentioned in the film. Thus Miller's character was renamed Sally Manners, and Lorraine's character was renamed Audrey Dane (played by Virginia Bruce). In real life, Ziegfeld reportedly was obsessed with Miller, and was involved in numerous sex scandals. In 1922, Miller had given an interview in which she accused him of "making love to chorus girls" and sending her a diamond ring as "big as her hand"; this essence of Ziegfeld's character is captured in the film. Incidentally, Miller died from toxicity complications after surgery just before the release of the film on April 7, 1936, which led one reviewer writing in Liberty to denounce an urban legend which had arisen surrounding the timing of her death, writing "It's not true that Marilyn Miller died of a broken heart at not getting the lead in this." Another myth surrounding her untimely death at the age of 37 is that she had contracted syphilis. Frank Morgan, a stage and film character actor, played the role of promoter Billings in the film. Dennis Morgan, in an uncredited role, performs in "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody" (dubbed by Allan Jones). Pat Ryan, the future Pat Nixon, wife of Richard Nixon and First Lady of the United States, was an extra in the film. Will Rogers was to appear in the film, but he was killed in a plane crash in August 1935. He was played by stand in A. A. Trimble.

The extravagant costumes, which even Ziegfeld initially considered too flamboyant, were designed by Adrian, who had worked with many of the greatest actresses of the period, including Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, Jeanette MacDonald, Jean Harlow, Katharine Hepburn and Joan Crawford, and later designed for films such as Marie Antoinette (1938), The Women (1939), and The Wizard of Oz (1939). Howard Gutner documents that due to MGM's wealth and the high budget, Adrian indulged in "sheer lavishness" in making the costumes, surpassing anything he had done previously. It took 250 tailors and seamstresses six months to sew the costumes that Adrian had designed for the film, using of silver sequins and of white ostrich plumes. The costumes worn by women in the film are diverse, varying from "puffy hooped skirts to catlike leotards" to "layers of tulle and chiffron", with the men mostly wearing black tuxedos.

Leonard, a film director who specialized in melodrama and musicals, anchored the music for the film, working with Walter Donaldson, Irving Berlin, and lyricist Harold Adamson. The extravagant dances and ensemble sequences were choreographed by Seymour Felix and Harold Adamson, including the song sequence of "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody" (it was Irving Berlin's 13th annual edition in 1919). The "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody" set, known as the "Wedding Cake", involved several weeks of shooting time and was reported to have cost US$220,000 (US$ in dollars). As many as 180 performers were involved in the scenes which included singers, dancers and musicians. The sequence starts with Stanley Morner (soon to be known as Dennis Morgan) alone in front of the curtain, apparently singing “A Pretty Girl ” Apparently because, although he was an excellent singer “the song had previously been recorded by Allan Jones, another M G M contract player, and the studio apparently decided not to re record the number.” After he sings the entire first verse and refrain, the front curtain begins to pull away and the stage begins to rotate, revealing people in 18th century costumes. The chorus continues to sing as the stage rotates through excerpts from romantic musical history, eventually reaching “Rhapsody in Blue” and an elaborate dance number. Then Morgan re appears, standing among a crowd of pretty girls who are seated on the stairs. As he finishes the song, Virginia Bruce is revealed seated atop the tower, wearing a voluminous gown that spills over the edge. She faces front as the tower continues to turn. The camera pulls back to show the entire structure, and the satin curtain descends, enclosing each level in turn until the stage curtain closes. The curtains, made of rayon silk, measured Sheldon Hall and Stephen Neale note the theatrical sense that the cinematographers achieved through shooting the sequence in virtually a single take. They mention that "the camera traverses an enormous platform set contained within a curtained proscenium (also enormous)", and that the "set itself revolves to meet the camera, rather than the camera entering the space of the set." Linda Mizejewski, author of a book on the Ziegfeld girls, argues that the Pretty Girl sequence is more than just about being showy; it is symbolic of womanhood which "powerfully visualizes women as the raw material for male aesthetic vision and design". In the film she believes that womanhood is defined by the "young, white, blond and slender" female, which in the sequence are "delineated as the fluffy, artificial tiers of costuming and staging". The Harriet Hoctor ballet music was scored by Con Conrad to lyrics written by Herb Magidson. The circus ballet was an adaptation from the old Ziegfeld stage shows.

The film, which premiered in Los Angeles at the Carthay Circle Theatre, was the first musical film in history for which one of its cast members won an Academy Award. Luise Rainer received the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Anna Held, Ziegfeld's first wife. The film, the pride of MGM at a time when Warner Brothers and RKO Pictures were the leading studios in Hollywood for musical production, was a major commercial and critical success and one of the most successful films of the 1930s, grossing US$4,673,000 (US$ in dollars) worldwide at the box office. It was acclaimed upon release as the greatest musical biography to be made in Hollywood and still remains a standard in musical film making. At just over three hours, The Great Ziegfeld was also the longest talking film of the time. A reviewer for the Spokane Chronicle praised the film for its superb acting, writing that "[even] the great producer [Ziegfeld] would have been unable to produce scenes of magnitude and splendor that are given as part of the picture telling his life." Frank S. Nugent of The New York Times was also highly praising of the film, noting that it had "more stars than there are in the heavens" and remarking that "the picture achieves its best moments in the larger sequences devoted to the Girls — ballet, chorus and show. At least one of these spectacular numbers, filmed to the music of Irving Berlin's 'A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody', with overtones of 'Rhapsody in Blue', never has been equaled on the musical comedy stage or screen." Both The New York Times and Film Daily rated the film in the "Ten Best" of the year. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 69 out of 100 based on 16 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Christopher Null stated that The Great Ziegfeld is a "textbook case of how a film can lose its appeal over the years". The film is occasionally cited as a "prime example of the Academy's fallibility" in a year when other critically acclaimed pictures such as Mr. Deeds Goes to Town were released, which some argue was more deserving of Best Picture. Emily W. Leider claims the film to be "more remarkable for its "legs and tinsel" extravagance than for its excellence." David Parkinson of Empire gave the film three out of five stars and concluded that it "Drags in places and doesn't even try for a true to life portrait of the great theatre entrepreneur but it's shiny and big spectacle with impressive choreography." Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader called it "amazingly dull, even with William Powell in the lead and guest appearances by the likes of Ray Bolger and Fanny Brice." Emanuel Levy gave it a C grade and stated that it was "overlong and overblown but ultimately mediocre as a musical movie and as a biopic of the legendary showman." James Berardinelli awarded it two and a half out of four stars, stating that "although some of the production's technical aspects remain impressive, the dramatic elements come across as trite and many of the musical numbers are dated", but said that it was a "reasonably competent – albeit "airbrushed" – presentation of the main character's life."