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The Great Ziegfeld is a 1936 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) musical film directed by Robert Z. Leonard and produced by Hunt Stromberg. It stars William Powell, Luise Rainer, and Myrna Loy. The film, shot at MGM Studios in Culver City, California, in the fall of 1935, is a fictionalized tribute to Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. and a cinematic adaption of Broadway's Ziegfeld Follies, with highly elaborate costumes, dances and sets. Many of the performers of the theatrical Ziegfeld Follies were cast in the film as themselves, including Fanny Brice and Harriet Hoctor, and Billie Burke acted as a supervisor for the film. The "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody" set alone was reported to have cost US$220,000 (US$4,830,504 in 2024 dollars[1]),[2]. The music to the film was provided by Walter Donaldson, Irving Berlin, and Harold Adamson. The extravagant costumes were designed by Adrian, taking some 250 tailors and seamstresses six months to prepare them. One of the biggest successes in film in the 1930s and the pride of MGM at the time, it was acclaimed as the greatest musical biography to be made in Hollywood and still remains a standard in musical film making. It won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actress. Although the film is still praised for its lavish production and as a symbol of glamor and excess during the Golden Age of Hollywood, today Ziegfeld is generally seen less favorably and is considered to be excessively showy and long. MGM made two sequels: Ziegfeld Girl and Ziegfeld Follies.
- ^ 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024.
- ^ Green 1999, p. 54.