On Jul 1, 4:11 pm, clgan1...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
> If you don=92t like fireworks, you can settle for sparklers, or at least
> spectacle with the CabaretCinema screening of the 1936 Oscar winner
> THE GREAT ZIEGFELD at 8 p.m. this Friday July 4 at the Rubin Museum of
> Art=92s K2 Lounge.
>
> As The New York Times re****ted when it opened, =93The budget shows on
> the screen. It is there in the cast, with William Powell, Myrna Loy,
> Luise Rainer, Virginia Bruce, Frank Morgan, Fannie [sic] Brice, Ray
> Bolger, Reginald Owen, Ernest Cossart, Harriet Hoctor and the many
> others who prompted the studio's weaker students of astronomy to
> advertise their wares with a "more stars than there are in the
> heavens" slogan. It is there, too, in the glittering sets, the
> exuberantly extravagant song and dance numbers, the brilliant
> costumes, the whole weeping panoply of a Ziegfeld show produced with a
> princely disregard for the cost accountant.=94
>
> It is all part of our =93What Price Paradise?=94 film series (the price
> for MGM in 1936 not incidentally was $1.5 million dollars) to
> complement our Buddha in Paradise exhibition. Come and indulge in a
> little heaven on earth for the paradisiac price of $7 spent at the K2
> Lounge bar.
>
> www.rmanyc.org
It was raining so I skipped the fireworks. The guy who introduced the
film said, "Everyone should see The Great Ziegfeld twice," but he was
wrong -- once is almost intolerable. But I stuck it out.
There are two or three terrific excerptable production numbers, MGM at
its silliest bar Sgt. Berkeley. Luise Rainer is splendid as Anna Held
(singing aside), Fanny Brice and Ray Bolger are terrific as Fanny
Brice and Ray Bolger (Fanny would have been terrific as Bolger too,
IMHO) and there's a really bad Eddie Cantor imitator.
The great sequences are the six minutes before intermission: A Pretty
Girl Is Like a Melody (with melodies by Puccini, Liszt, Gershwin and
Leoncavallo) and a later ballet number with the ballerina tossing up
her toes around six trained Afghans. They steal it. (She shoulda
sued.)
Other than those fifteen minutes, it's three hours of wretched kitsch.
Those sequences are kitsch, too, but they're GOOD kitsch.) You don't
need it.
Jean Coeur de Lapin
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