Glorifying the American Girl

source: Glorifying the American Girl

Marilyn Miller was NOT the star of this film. Marilyn Miller was a beautiful TALL, leggy showgirl who was Broadway's brightest star of the 20s. She was in "Sally", "Sunny" - she also filmed them in 1929 and 1930. The star of "Glorifying the American Girl" was Mary Eaton. Mary Eaton was picked by Ziegfeld in the 20s to be the successor to Marilyn Miller (because Miss Miller was getting uppity.) She replaced Miss Miller in "Kid Boots" with Eddie Cantor. Mary Eaton, in my opinion, couldn't hold a candle to Marilyn Miller. I think Mary Eaton was showcased far better in "The Cocoanuts" (1929). I loved this film because this is my era - I feel so at home watching musicals and movies from the late 20s, early 30s - the songs are so catchy. I loved the start as it showed girls from all over America walking to Broadway and instantly went into Mary Eaton singing "No Foolin'". I also liked Olive Shea - I was glad when she got her "Buddy" -she seemed quite a natural actress. I didn't particularly like Mary Eaton - she didn't seem very starry eyed - she came across as tough and jaded. Helen Morgan's song I loved but I also thought Eddie Cantor's skit went on far too long.

Historical curiosity that uses the old "girl has to choose between love and career" plot. Done much better many times since but it's still worth checking out. The plot isn't really what you should see it for, anyway. You should see it for the musical and comedy numbers and what is basically a filmed Ziegfeld show. Is it dated? Sure it is. My grandmother wasn't even born when this came out and I'm hardly a kid. It's an early talkie so it creaks pretty badly. It's worth watching if you're interested in show business history and early musicals. Also worth noting it's a Pre-Code film with some partial nudity and swearing. Look out for a pre-Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller!

"Glorifying the American Girl" is an extremely dated film and it comes off as very quaint and old fashioned. The audio quality varies widely and is, at times, almost incomprehensible. In addition, the original Two-Color Technicolor sequences are gone--faded over time. It's a darn shame the film is in this condition and I'd love to see it restored someday. The first 2/3 of the film is a story about a woman who gets a dance partner and sets off for the stage. Her boyfriend is left alone....waiting and hoping for her return. As for the dreams of success, it doesn't come quickly and the lady has a serious problem with her sleazy partner. However, with hard work she's discovered by the folks at the Ziegfeld Follies and she's about to become a star. Now because she isn't available back home, her boyfriend slowly drifts away and falls for a co-worker. By the end, the lady is a star and the show is a success...but she's alone and so ends the picture. The final 2/3 is the big show and you get a chance to see one of Ziegfeld's shows filmed and shown to a wider audience. I was a bit surprised as the routines were a lot rougher and less amazing than they'd be portrayed over a decade later in "The Great Ziegfeld"--which isn't surprising as this biopic seemed to have little to do with the man anyway. In addition, you hear Rudy Vallee and Helen Morgan sing as well as a very stereotypically Jewish comedy routine with Eddie Cantor. It's a shame, however, that you don't get to hear Cantor sing in the film, as I loved his clever songs in his other films. All in all, if you can get past the rough condition of the film, it gives you a rare peek at a bygone era--like a time capsule. Rough but full of energy and fun--mostly for fans of early films and historians but still might be of some interest to the average person if they give the film a chance. While it IS very dated, for 1929 it was a heck of a picture--hence my relatively high rating.

I just finished watching this film and was delighted, mainly in having the chance to experience elements of a Ziegfeld show in its time. Rudy Vallee and a very funny Eddie Cantor were very good, but watching and hearing the great Helen Morgan was a special treat. A taste of Broadway history. At opening night of the big show there are cameos of celebrities of the period including Ring Lardner, NY Mayor Jimmy Walker, Adolph Zukor, Noah Berry, Texas Guinan, and Ziegfeld and his wife Billie Burke. They are spotted by announcer Norman Brokenshire and reported into a large Columbia (CBS) microphone in the lobby. Ziegfeld reportedly supervised this film. He died 2 years after its release. Of course film quality and production values are not what we have now but take this film for what it is and you'll enjoy it.

The first hour of this movie is a complete waste of time. The usual 1930s Hollywood clichés about the young woman who dreams of making it big on Broadway. The last half hour has four numbers of varied interest, including three star turns. For me, the best was Helen Morgan's forgettable new song. It sounds like an imitation of "Bill", her hit number from Showboat. It's interesting to watch and hear her put the number across, though, even if the song itself is forgettable. Next is Rudy Vallee singing one of his big hits, "Vagabond Lover." Of mild historical interest, I guess. He's much better in later movies. Eddie Cantor's number, a scene in a clothing store, goes on way too long and isn't funny. It's mean-spirited, actually. And then there is the last 5 minutes of the movie, the big musical number supervised by Ziegfeld himself. It is very slow, and not impressive. Nothing at all like the magnificent finale in "The Great Ziegfeld" from 1939. I don't know how representative this is of a Ziegfeld show from the era. I suspect in the actual Follies shows the women wore less. I certainly hope they looked more comfortable in their costumes. Did they really wear such huge headpieces? All in all, a real disappointment of a movie.

Though the sound is sometimes weak and distant and the story is hardly compelling, there is still much of interest. This is the only film with scenes from a Florenz Ziegfeld show. They are shot in two color (red/green) Technicolor. One shows a tableau and the other is a dance sequence. Both show elaborate Ziegfeld costumes. Eddie Cantor's tailor act is really funny and there are several other vaudeville sequences as well. Mary Eaton's singing is fine, as is much of the dancing, both show and ballet style.

"Glorifying the American Girl" was a huge hit in its day. Talking pictures were brand new and musicals were all the rage, and this was not only the most extravagant musical of it's day, it allowed America to finally see one of Florenz Ziegfeld's legendary musicals without going all the way to New York. Today it's chiefly of historical interest, as an early talkie and an example of 1920's Broadway, and yes, a Flo Ziegfeld's musical extravaganza. It's not very entertaining, being as clumsily shot as most early talkies, with bad sound and film that's been allowed to deteriorate until hardly any detail is visible. The Ziegfeld show that's the chief attraction would be eye-popping if it were in color, if you could see any of the detail of the huge, insane, costumes, and if you could see any of the famous "Most beautiful girls in New York" except as distant blurs. The plot is pretty lame, about a sweet, innocent, well-chaperoned vaudeville girl who becomes a Broadway star in spite of a few minor difficulties, so the mind is pretty much left to look at such spectacle as is visible (and Eddie Cantor) and ponder the meaning of life and history and wonder about things like... ...If you're sick of movies that are nothing but CGS special effects, it be glad you didn't live in the "Good old days" where the show was nothing but fancy costumes and girls who just stood there wearing them. Ziegfeld never had even a pretense at a plot, just some disconnected songs and comedy routines. ...Isn't it amazing how far the art of dance has come in the last 80 years? Leading lady Marilyn Miller is the only one of the dozens of girl dancers who looks like she had more than a month of training, and she lacks anything resembling polish. Then she was a star, today she couldn't get a job. ...If you're a woman and tired of the endless quest for perfect thinness, it's interesting to see how much fashions in women's figures change; Marilyn Miller was one short, chunky woman and everyone thought she was hot stuff. ...Gosh, weren't those costumes skimpy? Even by today's standards (outside of Las Vegas). This was made before the movie industry began censoring itself, and it makes one wonder what one's grandmother got up to during the roaring twenties! ...How did the girls move in those 10-foot headresses? Do they use the same steel-brace-down-the-back as "Beach Blanket Babylon", or are they so stiff because they're afraid a wrong move will unbalance the things and break their necks? ...Isn't it nice to live in a world where a girl can have a job without having to take her mother with her everywhere she goes? And aren't you glad girls don't have to pretend to be so innocent they're helpless anymore? ...Did you know that Marilyn Miller was the first Marilyn? Yup, she made up the name for herself and it caught on bigtime. did you know Billie Burke, who played Glinda the Good Witch in `The Wizard of Oz' was Ziegfeld's last wife? And did you know that Myrna Loy played her in `The Great Ziegfeld'? Okay, I was getting pretty bored with the movie by the end.

If you want to catch a viewing of this film in nearly all of its "Glory" -- 2-Strip Technicolor and all--simply get on a plane to Los Angeles and taxi over to the UCLA Film Archives in Westwood. Oh...you'll have to make an appointment well in advance...for "Scholarly and/or Academic Pursuits Only"...for a private screening, as this film resides in the vault. It is rarely screened, except for Film Preservation Retrospectives... or is occasionally loaned out to "your town"...if you happen to live in NY State, or Australia, or Europe. All versions on VHS or DVD are poorly duped dupe-of-a-dupe copies of badly battered eminent domain prints, but unfortunately, that's all there is "out there" until UCLA decides to release their terrific library of 2-Strip Technicolor films onto the world some day! For a couple of swell Technicolor scenes of the film's finale, I suggest that you visit the sensational, stupendous, colossal "Vitaphone Varieties" website run by Jeff Cohen at vitaphone.blogspot.com/.

For Ziegfeld research it's a must, and you get to see many of Ziegfeld's stars perform, but the sound is poor and there isn't a whole lot of conflict to drive the plot.... As a woman, 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 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, before eventually settling for girl-next-door Gloria Shea -- who actually is treated pretty badly by the film, abandoned and hit by a car! Eaton discovers her boyfriend's moved on just as 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 heartbreak, but at least she doesn't die of alcohol poisoning or get slapped around like in the exploitational ZIEGFELD GIRL. The production numbers are tame by Hollywood standards, and we wait the whole film to finally see one of Flo's evolving stage contraptions. Most of the numbers are arranged in tableau including a gorgeous "painting" of a mermaid being pulled from the sea in a fisherman's net as the Pope and neoclassical figures stand by. Tableaux don't make interesting cinema, but I was happy to see some man flesh in these scenes too as nearly * males (like Johnny Weissmuller here) were apparently excised from the later interpretations of Ziggy's stagework -- ironic since Ziegfeld had his first success displaying the muscular Sandow, so you know he wasn't shy about it. Eddie Cantor has an overly long vaudeville scene as a Jewish tailor, but is actually funnier in a brief exchange with a haughty showgirl, Rudy Vallee might have been a somebody back then but he sure doesn't show it here. Helen Morgan sings her signature torch song from atop a piano (a schtick she invented by necessity as she was too short to be seen in many music halls). She is excellent in the film APPLAUSE which also came out in 1929 where she played an aging showgirl trying to keep her daughter out of theater life, but unfortunately her performance here suffers from the antique recording. Ted Shawn is the imaginative choreographer who arranges the dancers as exotic animals, graceful swans, and nouveau beauties clutching glass globes. Shawn would create the Jacob's Pillow dance festival and was instrumental in forming a uniquely American branch of Modern Dance. There's a lot of history here, and the opening montage is almost Fritz Lang-esquire, but I wouldn't try to show the whole film to any of my friends. The film quality is terribly uneaven, suggesting inconsistent filmstock. Silent footage from a premier was spliced in so we can get a glimpse of Ziegfeld and Billie Burke, as well as other Broadway dignitaries of the age. It's a tragedy the technicolor scenes are lost (at least, not a part of the Alpha Video release). All-in-all it's not a bad film, the pre-code heroine isn't "punished" for having career ambitions but she experiences some bumps and bruises along the way (by her selfish mother and an unscrupulous manager). She loses the cute guy but he comes to congratulate her when she stars in the show and that seems like a fair compromise; much better than the plots that would slap down any woman who dared to have her own goals in later films.