Glorifying the American Girl (1929)

6/10

A glimpse into the 20's plus a decent story as well

craig_smith91 July 2001

There are two levels to this film. First is your chance to get a glimpse of history. You get to see an example (brief) of what one of the Ziegfeld Follies was. In the process of that you get a chance to hear and see Rudy Vallee and Helen Morgan sing, and see one of Eddie Cantor's skits. You also get a feel for the pomp and extravagance of the follies. What a difference to today's entertainment. In a sense, the folllies were a preview of what became the variety shows on television. And, those shows are gone too. And the movie catches how interested the general public was when a show opened. There was no tv in 1929 so radio went on the air describing all of the people who were attending the opening.

The second level is a fairly decent and interesting story. A story of a young woman who wanted to achieve success. And, in her drive for that success, we see the life she leaves behind and the effect that has on people as she drives forward. Part of that drive comes from her mother who wanted to be a part of that success. It is interesting how she also tries to drive Mary Eaton into making the decisions that she wants made and how she tries to manipulate those decisions. The movie does get across that there is a price to pay for success.

An interesting movie and worth seeing for a glimpse into the late 20's.

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7/10

Gramopohone exrav-org-ganza

ptb-89 February 2006

I would give this colossal and fascinating time capsule musical a 9 for entertainment value and a 2 for the DVD quality. I was so keen to see every frame of this film, having already goggled at THE SHOW OF SHOWS and Broadway MELODY OF 1929...but the DVD I found has the final reels hacked about and urrrggghhhh NOT in the 2 color Technicolor that I was drooling about expecting. I could faintly see the B&W rendition but I knew it was in color so I was really irritated with the DVD people for releasing this great and amazing film in such a chopped and pale way. Prior to the grand finale, the rest of the film is quite interesting as a story and compelling for the visuals and clunky sound of real people and normal city life in the 20s. Sub leads Olive Shea and Edward Crandell are actually more interesting than the lead, Marilyn Miller, and the gorgeous fashions, street scenes, department store settings etc kept me fascinated. I am so keen to see this film properly with the color scenes. as a production and a vintage musical it is extraordinary and beautiful..so please check out the quality and the completeness of the finale before you purchase. If anyone has a good copy to share, complete and with color scenes they can contact me via the message boards on this site. I am so keen to see it properly...and so should you be if you really love sumptuous 20s life on film. Early in the film there is a wonderful outdoor picnic with a stage show...like a delicious 1929 picnic version of '"This Is Our Once A Year Day" from PAJAMA GAME of 1958. Just charming!

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7/10

An interesting look at Ziegfeld's Follies and early talking pictures

AlsExGal21 November 2009

Just because I gave this movie seven stars doesn't mean it will be entertaining to everyone or even most people. Its main value today is to get a rare glimpse at one of the earliest talkie musicals, and also see and hear what a Ziegfeld show might have been like right before the famous showman went broke in the stock market crash of 1929. Florenz Ziegfeld himself actually produced this film, which features his Ziegfeld Follies girls. However, he was not at all happy with the final product, which flopped at the box office.

The movie actually does have a plot of sorts, although its purpose in this film, as in many of the early talkie musicals, is mainly to set up the singing and dancing numbers. This film, though, is unusual in that the plot does actually teach a little unexpected lesson on the price of fame.

The film opens with Gloria, Barbara, and Buddy selling sheet music in a New York City department store. Gloria and Buddy have been sweethearts since childhood, but Gloria wants a career before she settles down. To complicate matters, Barbara is secretly in love with Buddy. A vaudeville hoofer sees Gloria dancing at a store picnic and wants to take her on as a dance partner. They take their act on the road and are spotted by one of Ziegfeld's talent scouts. Back in New York at the audition, the Follies want Gloria but not her partner. Unfortunately for Gloria, though, she signed a five year contract splitting all her earnings with her partner. Gloria becomes the star of Ziegfeld's new show, and this sets up the lavish production numbers of the last third of the film.

Particularly entertaining in the Ziegfeld production part of the film are performances by Helen Morgan, Rudy Valee, and Eddie Cantor. You have to remember that this film was made before there was any effective production code, so you'll likely be shocked at the revealing nature of some of the costumes in the production numbers and some of the language used. Unfortunately, although the last third of the film was shot in Technicolor, the DVD version is in black and white. Also, because of the limitations of technology and the age of this film, there are many long shots of the production numbers with the Ziegfeld Follies girls that make it impossible to see the details of the lavish costumes and sets. However, in spite of its flaws, I'd recommend it to anyone interested in this period of history and these very early talkie gems of which so few are remaining in any form.

All of the versions floating around are in shaggy shape and most are incomplete. There is a fully restored version - I believe it is at UCLA - that has the Technicolor footage restored. Maybe someday we'll see the complete original version on DVD.

Mary Eaton, who played Gloria, had a hard time dealing with the loss of her fame as talking pictures left her behind. She died at the age of only 48 due to her chronic alcoholism. In contrast, her sister Doris, who never had Mary's fame, is the last surviving Ziegfeld girl at age 105 as I am writing this. As of the spring of 2009 she was still making public appearances. How odd that the star of one of the first talking pictures made on the subject of the price of fame would have a life that teaches such a sad lesson on that same subject.

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Interesting story, phenominal presentation.

DrezenMedia26 April 2004

The opening sequence of the picture is quite a sight to see, the way it was edited, the positioning of the sets and actors featured in the opening, and to top it all off, a few short clips from Ziegfeld's best known music from his best known music numbers (including "A Pretty Girl is like a Melody"). The rest is for all of you to see. It is available from Alpha Video and maybe a few public-domain distributors (do not expect to find it on DVD, it is a fairly rare film and I was lucky to get mine). The scenes that were shot in Technicolor are somewhat visible if you squint real, real hard. This is a 75 year old picture we're talking about here, it's amazing how much footage of Technicolor has survived since then, because there is so little of it. I originally purchased this picture to see what it's Technicolor sequences look like. I was very suprised though with how it turned out to be. Whoever did the choreography for this picture was a genius because the dancing is very well done. Adding it to your collection (whether or not you chose to do so) will certainly be worth your money.

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6/10

Enjoy the innocence of it all, as well as Eddy Cantor and Helen Morgan

Terrell-430 January 2008

We should encourage each other to smile indulgently at the antics and musical tastes of our great-grandparents. After all, our own great-grandchildren will soon enough be doing the same to us. In Glorifying the American Girl, the story of Gloria Hughes' ambition to be a musical star is appliquéd onto the Broadway extravaganza of a Florenz Ziegfeld show. We get songs, dances, fabulous costumes, show girls, ukulele plucking, comedy skits, a near-fatal accident, lechery, tearful farewells, love lost and love found and, of course, a big finale where Gloria's success is tempered only by the sadness of a love too long delayed, yet still made satisfying by the happiness of her two best friends. In other words, there's much to snicker about...just don't take your own all-too-soon-to-be-dated enthusiasms too seriously.

Briefly, Gloria (Mary Eaton) works with Buddy (Edward Crandall) and Barbara (Gloria Shea) at Heiman's Department store. Buddy plays piano while Gloria sings the latest songs so that customers will buy the sheet music. Barbara is a clerk. Buddy loves Gloria. Barbara loves Buddy. Gloria thinks she loves Buddy. When Danny Miller (Dan Healy), part of the song and dance team, Miller and Mooney, fires his latest Mooney at the company picnic, he spots Gloria dancing. Before long Gloria has left Heiman's and become the replacement Mooney. While Buddy pines for Gloria and Barbara pines for Buddy, Miller and Gloria travel the country with their act. They're spotted by a scout working for Florenz Ziegfeld and arrive in New York with big hopes and big dreams. It doesn't work out. But Gloria fights for a chance to show her stuff and lands a spot in the show. Danny, who is something of a lech as well as a good dancer, hangs around because of a contract he had Gloria sign. Now opening night approaches. But wait. Barbara has been hit by a taxi and is in critical condition. Buddy realizes he loves Barbara. Gloria goes on with the show. In a miracle of careless editing, Buddy and Barbara are in their seats, part of the happy, applauding audience as Gloria, learning at the last minute that Buddy and Barbara are wed, achieves fame.

What makes all this dated nonsense watchable is the innocence of the acting, the songs and dances, and, during the last third of the movie, the Ziegfeld Follies on stage. The Follies were lush, fabulous variety shows. We have an odd tableau that features nuns, a bishop, scantily clad girls and half naked chorus boys probably doing something religiously questionable; there's Helen Morgan sitting on a piano telling us another sad story in song about her man; here's Rudy Vallee singing to us that he's just a vagabond lover looking for the girl in his vagabond dreams; front and center are high-kicking chorines with none of the self- conscious angst of A Chorus Line; they just keep slapping the leather to the floor. And just before Gloria's big starring number, here's Eddy Cantor with an associate and a stooge doing a long comedy bit about a customer unfortunate enough to enter the tailor shop where Cantor works. While Vallee looks much like the self-satisfied, dirty old man he turned into, Helen Morgan is great. She could deliver a torch song like few before or since. And Eddie Cantor gives all us aging youngsters a chance to see what made him such a big star in vaudeville and on Broadway. The humor is ethnic (e.g., broad and Jewish), the timing is perfect and the routine keeps building. I don't know who his stooge was or the fellow who played Cantor's boss, but they were first-rate second bananas.

This movie was supposed to have had the Ziegfeld Follies sequences shot in Technicolor. Perhaps somewhere there is a VHS or DVD version that reflects this. Most copies I've heard of have just been slapped together as cheaply as possible with no color and, often, with a lot of chopping. In the version I have, Barbara's auto accident, Buddy's promise of love, their marriage and then their being seated in the audience while Gloria triumphs is cut and edited incomprehensibly. The movie is in the public domain and looks every bit of it. Perhaps not much of a loss, but it would have been good to have seen Morgan and Cantor under better circumstances.

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6/10

For Ziegfeld research it's a must!

wetcircuit7 April 2007

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 nude 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.

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5/10

Fascinating Time Capsule Albeit Uneven Film

HarlowMGM11 July 2012

GLORIFYING THE American GIRL is an interesting curiosity from 1929, one of many early musical films during the first years of the sound era. It's as creaky as any of them but it's intriguing that this movie appears to have much better reviews as a lot than THE Broadway MELODY (an often unjustly maligned film) undoubtedly due to that celebrated Best Picture Oscar winner bringing in looks and reviews from a more general audience whereas GLORIFYING's critics seem to be largely fans and students of history and the early sound era and thus more sympathetic and realistic about the film's imperfections. The movie is a fascinating look at a long-dead era not only in Ziegfield revues but of "tableaux" stage performances and sheet music counters in large department stores where employees perform the latest songs for buyers.

Mary Eaton (a bona fide Ziegfield star) stars as Gloria, the songstress in such a department store who works alongside Buddy (her semi-serious beau) and Barbara (a nice quiet girl who clearly is also in love with Buddy). At the store's annual picnic, Gloria's singing and dancing abilities impress the event's headliner, small-time vaudevillian "Miller" (Dan Healey), a middle-aged juvenile whose lechery toward his partner "Mooney" has her quitting in disgust. Miller signs Gloria to be his new "Mooney" and she proves a hit as they launch a 21-week-tour. Gloria's shrew of a smother mother is along for the ride and does her best to break up Gloria's now long distance romance with Buddy. Miller is ready to can Gloria after her rebuffs of his sexual harassment but when he learns a big-time producer wants to sign her makes sure he has a lock and a piece in her future by signing her to a five-year-contract. Back in New York for auditions, Gloria and Buddy are happily reunited but near-tragedy strikes Barbara which may prove to be a stronger breach in the Gloria/Buddy romance than anything her mother or Miller can do.

I was surprised how the movie downplays the fact that it's Ziegfield's show that Gloria's auditioning for considering what a legend the name was even in 1929. Ziegfield stars Helen Morgan, Eddie Cantor, and Rudy Vallee are featured in productions from the revue. Vallee, one of the most eccentric "romantic idols" ever has a fairly good song in one of his most famous numbers "Vagabond Lover" but he still seems more character actor than heartthrob even in his youth. Eddie Cantor seems astonishingly boyish and has a hilarious comic sketch as an impatient tailor that as many have noted is a little too long but still is very funny. Helen Morgan is superb in her torch number, looking startlingly like the late career Judy Garland, surely Morgan's persona was a big influence on Judy.

Mary Easton is a pleasant but not particularly memorable singer or actress; maybe her appeal didn't come across on camera but maybe her talents seemed greater on the epic Ziegfield stage. (Her more famous predecessor, Marilyn Miller, also is rather underwhelming in her handful of films). This was Easton's only starring film (she had earlier that year played a featured part in The Marx Brothers COCONUTS); the film's failure at the box office ended any hope of a screen career for her and she would make only more film playing an unbilled part over a decade later, tragically dying of alcoholism in the 1940's (as did Helen Morgan). The supporting cast is not much help but it is interesting to see the sleazy Healey and witchy mother get away with their shenanigans without any comeuppance before the final reel (apparently cheating show business associates and dominating star mothers were already staple characters on the show business scene in the 1920's).

This movie is a Paramount production but seems much rougher in it's sound and cinematography than the films made at MGM and Warner Bros. at the time so much so I had presumed this was an independent film released through United Artists. As some have noted, some of the songs are not recorded particularly well making the lyrics unclear on occasion and several scenes seem badly staged or photographed. The use of silent film for a few segments is particularly noticeable, although background music and voice-overs are heard, this silent footage is at a faster pace and it makes the cast appear as if they are running peculiarly (segments during the picnic when Gloria and Buddy retreat to a canoe, the personalities attending Gloria's Broadway debut). Several personalities of the era are shown very briefly attending the musical's premiere in obvious stock footage from newsreels including Florence Ziegfield himself with wife Billie Burke in footage that is barely three seconds long. GLORIFYING THE American GIRL will is an intriguing film for those interested in theater, musicals, or early talkie history; those who require a smooth consistently entertaining production will probably not be among it's admirers.

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6/10

A superior example of an early Hollywood musical

psteier4 December 2001

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.

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5/10

1929. Before the Revolution

ilprofessore-124 December 2019

Small town audiences back at the end of the 1920s must have been thrilled to see the through-the-car window, moving-camera shots of actual New York City streets, as well as the bits and pieces of extravagantly-staged review numbers from Flo Ziegfeld's big Broadway shows, some of them photographed in 2-strip Technicolor. Today, however, all these elaborately mounted Ziegfeld numbers seem either cliché-ridden, clunky, or just pretentious--terrible dancing (some staged by Ted Shawn!), mostly mediocre music, and lots of pretty girls, most of them so far from the camera lens that they are almost invisible. All in all, the film's highlights are very few--count among them, Helen Morgan singing atop a piano and showing some of the real emotion that had made her the star of "Showboat;" and Eddie Cantor hamming it up as a little tailor cheating a gullible customer in a 12 minute sketch. In those pre-code, pre-politically correct days, apparently no one considered a skit about lying and cheating Jews an ethnic slur. Audiences back then simply laughed at the tailor's immigrant English and Eddie's outrageous behavior. The backstage story which begins the story and more than once interrupts the Ziegfeld show was co-written and clumsily directed by Millard Webb who was then married to the picture's star, the pretty if not very talented Mary Eaton. (She and he who would disappear from movies by the early 30s.) This film, despite its many weaknesses, is an historical record, of course, and we should be grateful for it, if only to have evidence of how bad most standard Broadway and Hollywood entertainment was back then. A few years later, dance-director Busby Berkeley, a product of exactly this kind of formless Broadway show, saw the possibility of using the camera and editing to create real cinema. But back in 1929, the year of this film's release, the revolution was yet to come. Hurry up, Bus! Please!

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7/10

1930 Live

IreneTH31 July 2005

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.

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5/10

Gloria of the Follies

lugonian30 May 2010

GLORIFYING THE American GIRL (Paramount, 1929), personally supervised by Florenz Ziegfeld, directed by Millard Webb, features Broadway dancer/singer, Mary Eaton, in a musical drama about a young girl's dream on becoming a Ziegfeld girl with her name in lights. Best known for her co-starring performance opposite the Four Marx Brothers in THE COCOANUTS (1929), where she twice sang the Irving Berlin tune, "When My Dreams Come True," which could very well have been the title for this production, Eaton's opportunity starring in a major motion picture did mark the beginning as well as the end of her movie career.

The story opens with an interesting montage of an overview of the United States map glorifying various girls from different backgrounds becoming Ziegfeld girls. These scenes, accompanied by underscoring and singing of popular songs from 1917 to 1927 era, lead to the introduction of Gloria Hughes (Mary Eaton) singing in the sheet music department of Heimer's Department Store, accompanied by Buddy Moore (Edward Crandall), at the piano. Buddy loves Gloria, but he's secretly loved by Barbara (Olive Shea), another fellow co-worker. During the company's employee outing at Cedar Grove Park, Gloria encounters Danny Miller (Dan Healy), an entertainer who, after breaking up with his partner, Mooney (Kaye Renard), coaxes her into teaming up with him, much to Buddy's dismay. With her nagging mother (Sarah Edwards) constantly pushing her into the spotlight and Miller forcing his advances on her, Gloria realizes her partnership with Danny to be a mistake. When producers start paying more attention to Gloria than with her partner, Danny, with the help of her mother, schemes into having Gloria sign a five year agreement with him, so wherever Gloria goes, Danny's not very far behind living off her fame and fortune. Further complications arise with Gloria's newfound life finds her slowly parting from her best friends, Danny and Barbara.

With a mix of old and new tunes by various composers, the soundtrack listing is as follows: "Tulip Time," "Sally Won't You Come Back?" "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody" "No Foolin'" (sung by off-screen singers), "No Foolin'" and "Baby Face" (both sung by Mary Eaton); "Side By Side," "Bye, Bye Blackbird," "I'll Be There," "Just Alone," "Spooning With the One You Love" (sung by Dan Healy and Kaye Renard); "Blue Skies" (instrumental during acrobatic sequence); "Sam, the Accordian Man" (danced by Mary Eaton); "Hot Feet" (sung and danced by Eaton and Healy); and instrumental dance number. For the Ziegfeld Follies Show: "Gorgeous Girl," "I'm Just a Vagabond Lover" (sung by Rudy Vallee); "What Wouldn't I Do for That Man?" (sung by Helen Morgan); "Swan Lake Ballet" (performed by ensemble); "Cheap Charlie Skit" (with Eddie Cantor); and "There Must Be Someone Waiting For Me" (sung by Mary Eaton).

Aside from the rise to fame theme quite prominent in early sound musicals, the script overall lacks whatever strength necessary for a satisfactory story as a whole. Mary Eaton, a former Ziegfeld girl herself, who, at times resembles that of Ziegfeld's top headliner, Marilyn Miller, makes a satisfactory heroine surrounded by unsympathetic characters enacted by the obnoxious Dan Healy and domineering Sarah Edwards. On two occasions, Mrs. Hughes (Edwards) quips the unsung words at the time of, "Damn it!" whenever having difficulty opening her eyeglasses. Medium shots of semi-nude principals in the finale show should take any viewer by surprise. Sources indicate Johnny Weissmuller, Olympic champion and future "Tarzan" of the screen, to be one of the extras in that particular sequence.

Produced at Paramount's Long Island Studios, GLORIFYING THE American GIRL offers the great opportunity looking back at some New York City landmarks with location shooting ranging from Grand Central Station to the streets of Broadway. Preceding its final half hour musical finale, there's also a glimpse of famous personalities of the day (apparently lifted from newsreels) introduced by Norman Brokenshire, CBS radio announcer, including Florenz Ziegfeld and his wife, Billie Burke; actor Noah Beery; Adolph Zukor, head of Paramount Pictures; playwright, Ring Lardner; banker, Otto Kahn; entertainer Texas Guinan; along with New York Mayor Jimmy Walker and wife attending the premiere of Ziegfeld's latest follies. Highlights include Rudy Vallee singing his signature number; Helen Morgan, "Famous Star of 'Show Boat'" doing her torch song sitting on top of the piano; and Eddie Cantor as the Jewish tailor in a comedy skit lasting 12 minutes, giving full indication of what vaudeville was all about. Production numbers by others don't offer much promise of interest.

Originally released with Technicolor sequences, circulating prints of GLORIFYING THE American GIRL are available on black and white format only. Distributed to home video by various distributors as early as the 1980s, namely Video Yesteryear, the film itself became available on television around the same time, ranging from public TV, cable channels (Tempo Television) before turning up on classic movie channels as Turner Classic Movies (1990s), American Movie Classics (1996-2000), and finally DVD. For a film supervised by Broadway producer, Florenz Ziegfeld, one would expect GLORIFYING THE American GIRL to be equivalent to a lavish scale MGM musical rather than a second rate edition to the Academy Award winning "The Broadway Melody" (1929). As for Mary Eaton, in her final movie role, she leaves a legacy, that of an American girl glorified. No foolin.' (**)

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8/10

The film is a recorded history.

WCFIELDS16 January 1999

This film may be a bit creaky, but still it is very satisfying to watch. I DID NOT need the fast forward button. To see a filmed performance of a probably pared down Ziegfield Show was an enjoyable experience overall. The music and the dance scenes were excellently executed and are a treat. Many of the principals had very limited film exposure afterwards, especially Mary Eaton and Dan Healy The specialties by Cantor and Vallee were also good, But, it was a pure thrill to see Helen Morgan singing, "What Wouldn't I Do for That Man"!!

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6/10

A Ziegfeld Show

bkoganbing24 April 2017

It would take Busby Berkeley to take what Ziegfeld tried to do on stage to give it full expression on film. It would also take rival MGM studio to preserve the legacy of Florenz Ziegfeld with their films, The Great Ziegfeld, Ziegfeld Girl, and Ziegfeld Follies. But Paramount got the real deal in Glorifying The American Girl as the man himself made an appearance in this early talkie.

With a minor backstage plot about Mary Eaton who here and in real life epitomized the Ziegfeld Girl Paramount did this film where Eaton like Ruby Keeler in 42nd Street gets to become a star, the real Follies with real Ziegfeld performers like Eddie Cantor and Helen Morgan made appearances. Rudy Vallee did appear on Broadway as well, but it was for rival producer George White.

Other than the story line Glorifying The American Girl is like so many early talkie musicals just a filmed stage play. But this is a valuable historical record of what the man's fabled Follies must have been like for theater audiences.

Too bad Florenz Ziegfeld didn't live another decade, he died in 1932. Had he done so he might have made a mark in film. This film done at Paramount's Astoria Studio is a hint of what he could have accomplished.

Mary Eaton herself had a most tragic life. You might remember her as the young love interest in the Marx Brothers debut film, The Cocoanuts, also a photographed stage play. Like her fellow cast member Helen Morgan, Eaton fell pray to too much Prohibition booze and her health went South.

For the historically minded among us, Glorifying The American Girl is a valuable piece of cinema.

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5/10

Unfortunately, the original is still not available

delvondak30 November 2012

This was never the greatest of the Ziegfeld movies. Yet there is enough interest in Ziegfeld, his movies and the follies to warrant a decent, restored version on DVD. It is unfortunate that the B&W censored version available today excised around 9 minutes of footage, primarily from the spectacular show scenes. The technique employed by the film editors incorporated quick transitions from B&W to color during sequences. As a result, the color enhances the spectacle aspect of the show. The technique itself is of historical interest, as it represented a unique approach to the use of color that was intended to dazzle audiences. Moreover, the portions excised from the film offer a rare view of Ziegfeld shows in the late 1920s. So, although the censored version of the film is now available on DVD, the degraded video quality is very apparent in the show scenes. Current video, thus, affords some enjoyment and insight into the era, but the entertainment and historical value of the film has been seriously compromised. Let us hope that an uncensored restoration will be released.

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Very Early 'B' Musical

GManfred20 August 2011

I realize this was 1929 but this picture is not in the same class with "King Of Jazz" or "Broadway Melody Of 1929". The storyline of a backstage love triangle has been done to death and done much better; here, the story was disjointed and uninteresting. The cast is a group of no-names with the exception of Mary Eaton, the nominal star of the picture who was very pretty and could sing and dance a little.

The biggest disappointment, however, is the uninspired, pedestrian score by, of all people, Irving Berlin. The good songs are background songs or older, incidental songs written by other composers. It was great to see Helen Morgan, Eddie Cantor and Rudy Vallee but they don't appear until the last 20 minutes of the film.

In 1925 Florenz Ziegfeld signed a 5-year contract with Paramount to bring his brand of glamour and showmanship to Hollywood and to movie audiences. Foot-dragging, confusion and postponements led to a rush job called "Glorifying The American Girl", with Ziegfeld's contract about to run out. There are production numbers with strange themes, all of which lack a unifying coherence and featuring showgirls in various stages of undress. This was a staple of Ziegfeld's shows.

Cantor had a funny skit, Helen Morgan's number was poignantly sad, and Rudy Vallee and his Connecticut Yankees were refreshing, all of which was not enough to save this movie from mediocrity. Shown at Capitolfest 2011, Rome, N.Y. on a restored print from the UCLA Film Archives Dept.

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7/10

A curate's egg of a movie -- good in parts, rotten in others!

JohnHowardReid8 October 2014

Warning: Spoilers

Available – entirely in black-and-white alas! – on an otherwise excellent Grapevine DVD. A hybrid if ever there was one, "Glorifying the American Girl" both scales the heights and plumbs the depths. It's a crying shame the talented Millard Webb wasn't allowed to direct the whole film. The long-awaited Ziegfeld revue scenes are ghastly. Perhaps Technicolor may have rescued them from utter banality or at least turned them into an agreeable curiosity, but they are positively painful to watch in black-and-white. Mind you, nothing could save the long-winded Eddie Cantor talk-fest which must rate as one of the direst "humorous" routines ever filmed. It's a shame audiences are sent away with such a poor impression of a movie that holds the attention admirably until the very moment the camera expectantly enters the theatre for the oft-trumpeted Ziegfeld first night. Here we are treated to a procession of ancient newsreel clips, which Norman Brokenshire ineptly tries to tie together. This proves, alas, to be a foretaste of the horrors to come.

Let's forget about Ziegfeld and Harkrider and hark back to the opening of the film where Mary Eaton holds us spellbound with her (beautifully recorded too) department store song, "No Foolin' ". Here we are cleverly and deftly introduced to four of the five main characters. Crandall is a bit of a dud, but the other players (who will soon by joined by the talented Dan Healy) give the performances of their lives. Real-life Ziegfeld star Mary Eaton is wonderful, but she's not outshone by the charming Gloria Shea. What happens to Gloria provides one of the most dramatic moments in the whole history of the cinema, followed by a dramatic "chase" sequence through New York streets that will have even viewers in a 2015 audience on the edges of their seats.

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7/10

While not especially enjoyable today, it is a very rare peek back...

planktonrules1 December 2012

"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.

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2/10

A major disappointment

richard-17878 June 2014

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.

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6/10

A primitive musical

sideways84 January 2004

The girls were chunky in those days.

I rated this a 6. It was probably a 9 in 1929. Marilyn Miller was NOT the star. The costumes were revealing for the time. I don't know if that was Zeigfeld's or Paramount's influence. Paramount could make some racy stuff. All the performances were totally unmemorable, but it was a real study in what was popular at the time.

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5/10

Got Creak?

utgard1419 March 2014

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!

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1/10

Can Barely be Called a Movie

view_and_review2 February 2024

Warning: Spoilers

This movie was awful. A toddler could've written a better script. It lacked depth, self-awareness, and understanding. What looked like a different version of "The Dance of Life" couldn't come close to it. It was devoid of any pathos or any other elements to make the viewer engaged.

The movie stars Mary Eaton as Gloria Hughes, a singer and dancer. She sang at a department store while her boyfriend Buddy (Edward Crandall) played piano. She was discovered by a performer and sexual predator named Danny Miller (Dan Healy). He asked her to join his act titled "Miller and Mooney" and Gloria was delighted. Miller was smalltime but this was Gloria's chance to break it into the big leagues. Buddy wasn't too thrilled because this meant Gloria would be gone for weeks with a strange guy.

Waiting for Gloria's man to be available was Barbara (Gloria Shea) like a vulture waiting for carrion. The moment Gloria was out of the picture Barbara was there to comfort Buddy and more if he wanted. She wasn't overt and pushy with her desires, she was just there--close and warm. Meanwhile, Gloria was fighting off her boss, Miller, who wanted Gloria for more than just singing and dancing. She was ready to leave Miller's outfit and go back home to Buddy, but her emotionally manipulative and greedy mom (Sarah Edwards) guilted her into staying.

This was a testament to both of their character. Mrs. Hughes was so greedy she'd let a man take complete advantage of her daughter if it meant money in her pockets, and Gloria was so loyal to her mom that she'd accept such treatment for her sake. There's very little more odious than a manipulative mother taking advantage of her children.

Gloria remained with Miller and even signed a five year contract with him. Little did she know that Miller only did that because he knew she was being recruited by a bigger act, so a contract with her meant he'd stay relevant as well.

The real absurdity began when Gloria went back home after touring. Buddy met her at the train station with Barbara in tow. Already that's a bad look. What guy goes to pick up his G. F. with another woman? So we're starting to understand Buddy's emotional intelligence here and it's lacking.

Barbara was there platonically from Buddy's perspective, but for Barbara it meant much more. The moment Buddy laid eyes on Gloria he left Barbara high and dry. It was like she wasn't even with him to begin with.

Buddy and Gloria merrily hopped in a taxi cab to kiss and catch up. Then Barbara, like a stray puppy that's grown attached to an individual for giving it food, ran after Buddy as if to say, "What about me? Don't forget me!" and got hit by a car. She was so consumed with Buddy she forgot to look for vehicles when she stepped into the street.

The Gloria-Buddy-Barabara saga proceeded to get worse.

Barbara was taken to a hospital while Gloria went to an audition with Buddy. She got the part, but Buddy wasn't the least bit pleased. This would mean seeing even less of Gloria than he already had. Instead of being a man and talking to her about the situation and his feelings, he tucked his tail between his legs and said goodbye. Gloria could've understood that goodbye as a final goodbye, or she could've assumed that he was just sore for the moment and that they would talk later. Most normal people would've assumed the latter and not the former.

Buddy went back home to somberly play his piano. As he was playing his sad music his landlady told him that Barbara was in the hospital and she was asking for him.

How pathetic. This woman got hit by a car, yet she was clambering for someone else's man. She didn't call on anyone else but Buddy, a guy who didn't belong to her. She didn't ask for her mom, her pastor, or her best friend--she called out Buddy's name.

Well, Buddy, in his depressed state, went to the hospital where he found Barbara in a fitful sleep saying "Buddy don't leave me," over and over again. It was a pitiful scene. The emotionally immature and egotistically wounded Buddy told Barbara that he'd never leave her again and then married the poor girl.

Where did that come from?? We didn't see anything truly develop between them. It's not like he was fighting back feelings for her because he was already in a committed relationship. Was Buddy so emotionally needy that he excised Gloria and replaced her with Barbara that quickly and easily?

To make matters worse, he didn't even tell Gloria. He simply wrote her a note that she received while performing at a big show. It was terribly poor taste that was made poorer by the fact he and Barbara showed up at her show together expecting Gloria to be happy for them.

I tell you, this was some wretched writing. It's probably best she didn't end up with Buddy anyway because he was such a chump. He didn't even try with Gloria. He took the easy way out which is all he could probably handle anyway. He was such a simpleton and "Glorifying the American Girl" failed to highlight that. When they showed him on screen with Barbara in the audience at Gloria's show after he just crushed her with his note he was all smiles like he'd done a wonderful thing. His stupidity and spinelessness was without limit. In a way he was worse than Miller. Miller was a sleaze bag, but Gloria knew that and she fought him off. Buddy was her beloved and he broke it off with her at the first sign of inconvenience to him and didn't even have the nerve to tell her face to face. What a wuss.

I'll end there with regards to Buddy and pick back up with Gloria's mom Mrs. Hughes. There was never a resolution with her; or Miller for that matter. GTAG never circled back to these two horrendous characters to show them either changing their ways or getting their just desserts. They were shown early in all of their ugliness and dropped for a stage performance.

GTAG spent an inordinate amount of time on stage performances (this is a movie not a play). The characters were barely developed because we got as much dialogue and exposition about the characters as we did singing and dancing numbers. At one point they showed a twelve minute scene from a play with no context. It was just inserted into the movie like it belonged there. Time that could've been spent on the unresolved issues between Gloria and Buddy, Gloria and Miller, and Gloria and her mother, was spent on the play titled "Glorifying the American Girl." It made no sense.

I think all of the singing, dancing, and stage performance footage was due to lack of an adequate script. As if the writers wrote a forty-five minute movie and needed another forty-five minutes of movie to have a full feature. This was such an incomplete and unsatisfying flick it can barely be called a movie at all.

Free with Amazon Prime.

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8/10

Restored by UCLA to 98% of its "Glory."

mk431 October 2007

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/.

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8/10

A star is born

Spondonman29 September 2007

Yes, tastes have certainly changed since Ziegfeld's time. Driven by technological improvement and boredom with all things nice this kind of lavish entertainment has gradually been replaced with arty and cheap realism where producers compete to grind the audience's minds into the dirt. Give me honest fantasy anyday!

It's just a story about a woman who unwittingly throws her boyfriend away in her pursuit for fame as a dancer. She enters into a pact with the Devil in the form of a two bit hoofer – she makes it into a Ziegfeld show, he has 5 years contractual sponging off her ahead of him. There's plenty of singing and dancing before the main show, none of it very good but all of it wonderful to watch. The version I saw was in b&w throughout although it's pretty obvious which bits are meant to be in colour, and it ran 94 minutes suggesting it wasn't from the 1950's TV print. A lot of silent films have been restored and preserved but most early talkies have been left to rot away, the soundtrack here has partially returned to blast and crackle and the photography is uneven suggesting a patchwork quilt of available segments has been assembled over the years – so concentration is often needed! I hope the remastered version hasn't got these flaws - but at least every word was clearly enunciated for the benefit of the microphone box. Favourite bits: The ambulance weaving through the streets of New York; the one and only Helen Morgan torch singing What Wouldn't I Do For That Man; the dreamy There Must Be Someone Waiting For Me; the stately and sumptuous sets and costumes of the show itself; even Rudy Vallee singing Vagabond Dreams - rather dully to be sure. I've always liked Eddie Cantor – especially singing, but imho his Jewish tailors shop sketch went on a couple of minutes too long.

So, a nice unassuming film with some spectacular moments and some great songs – well worth watching for people like me who can enjoy it through the ravages of time for what it was: nothing heavy, just (fairly) innocent entertainment.

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10/10

Early Backstage Musical

Ron Oliver15 February 2005

While the Ziegfeld Follies is GLORIFYING THE American GIRL, one young lady sacrifices love for success.

This antique musical, produced under the personal supervision of Florenz Ziegfeld for Paramount Studios, is another backstage melodrama (a very popular genre at the time) about finding happiness through fame and success on the stage. Like so many other pictures of the era, it revels in Talk & Music; unfortunately, the sound quality is generally poor, making much of the dialogue & lyrics rather hard to decipher.

The representation of Ziegfeld's lavish production numbers is interesting in a historical context, and would be more pleasing to the eye if the original Technicolor footage still survived. Celebrated dancer Ted Shawn was responsible for the ballet numbers, while Irving Berlin supplied some of the music. A careful attention to the soundtrack will disclose the use of old standard tunes in the soundtrack: "A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody," "Bye, Bye, Blackbird," "Side By Side" & "Blue Skies."

The regular cast is made up of long-forgotten performers who still give the material their best efforts: Mary Eaton plays the dancer looking for fame in the Follies; Dan Healy is her rapacious but talented partner. Edward Crandall is Miss Eaton's doe-eyed department store boyfriend; Olive Shea plays the salesgirl who loves him desperately. Sarah Edwards has a few good moments as Miss Eaton's crocodilian mother.

Ziegfeld brought in three big stars to liven things up during the movie's final lap. Regrettably, Rudy Vallee's rendition of his hit "Vagabond Lover" is both wooden & unintelligible. Perched on a piano, Helen Morgan is equally difficult to understand, but her personality still comes through in her rendition of a torch song. Hyperactive Eddie Cantor comes off best of all during a boisterous sketch about a Jewish haberdasher.

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8/10

when music was music

kidboots12 October 2007

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.

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