Music · Drama · Romance
American
1936 · Directed by Robert Z. Leonard · 185 min
Florenz Ziegfeld begins as a fast-talking sideshow promoter at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and rises to become Broadway's greatest showman. This is MGM's lavish, sentimental portrait of ambition, glamour and the women who surround him, built around enormous stage spectacles.
Why it matters in cinema history
A defining film of 1930s Hollywood prestige production, it fixed the template of the studio biopic as musical spectacle and shows what the Academy rewarded in the mid-Depression years.
Watch with intention
Watch it as a film about showmanship itself: how Ziegfeld sells illusion, and how the movie sells the same illusion to you.
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