Actor · 1904–1987

Ray Bolger

2: briefs
13:00: average
26 min: in total

On film.briefs2

The Great Ziegfeld

Robert Z. Leonard · 1936

The Great Ziegfeld (1936) is MGM’s lavish biographical musical about Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., starring William Powell, Luise Rainer and Myrna Loy. Directed by Robert Z. Leonard and produced by Hunt Stromberg, it prioritises spectacle over accuracy — staging extravagant musical numbers, deploying hundreds of costumers and technicians, and constructing monumental sets like the 100-ton ‘Melody’ staircase. Though factually loose and dramatically thin, its unwavering commitment to scale, craft and ceremonial grandeur makes it a defining artefact of studio-era ambition.

13:00

The Wizard of Oz

Victor Fleming, King Vidor · 1939

The Wizard of Oz (1939) is a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical fantasy directed primarily by Victor Fleming, adapted from L. Frank Baum’s novel. Starring Judy Garland, it follows Dorothy’s journey from Kansas to Oz and back, using three-strip Technicolor, integrated song, and character-driven performance to explore competence, belonging, and self-recognition. Though framed as a dream, its power lies in the consistency of its emotional logic and the precision of its craft — from Harold Rosson’s cinematography to Harold Arlen’s score. It remains culturally central not as myth but as a sustained demonstration of how form and feeling can be made inseparable.