People are voting emotionally.

Boring, long, and too preachy.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

This movies is about itself. It is about a film being made just like the film being made. If that don't make sense: Then you get it. If that statements does make sense, you do not get it. Same thing goes for the whole film, you either get it or you don't and you get it by not getting it. Meaning, if you think about this flick too much you absolutely will NOT get it. Get it? Good.There is about 5 minutes of a girl-gets-dragged-to-Hollywood-and-meets-guy- who-sings-and-then-becomes-a-big-star story mixed in with, it seems, dozens of vignettes that have little or nothing to do about that plot.1) This moovie is hilarious.1.5) The Music is absolutely great, including the score.2) Being a moovie about a moovie being made, the discordant editing of this film probably is pretty similar the way a Hollywood musical of the 30's was made- Being re-written every few seconds until they ran out of time to film it.3) People who do not understand what the word "Follies" means ought to not watch Follies.This apparently was the first really big TechniColour musical Goldwyn produced. As such, this moovie is filled with a lot of great music. "Love Walked In" I understand is the last song George Gerwshin ever wrote, as he died before this film saw the screen. Maybe Goldwyn was asking too much from the guy. But this film gives homage to that song, making it the basic theme of the moovie. Someone complained about the song being overly repeated during the film, I disagree, it is used just enough to plant it in our minds as the musical theme of the film.Of all the films made in the 30's - This one looks good, sounds good, makes me laugh every time I see it, and is remarkably contemporary even to people watching in the 21st century. The look of our screen couple looks very contemporary, I see people like that on the beach where I live. A remarkable amount of flesh is exposed for a musical follies film of the 30's, but not to a distasteful degree.What makes this film important is the fact that it chronicles a big shift in Hollywood Musicals, and this is mostly apparent in the music that Gershwin wrote. In Musicals from the early 30's, women were more covered, and the songs lacked what is referred to as a Musical Hook. This film gives us a song with a very pronounced musical hook in "Love Walked In." - But the other Gerswin songs have this element as well including "Love is Here to Stay" I had read that it was Goldwyn's intention to produce one huge technical musical follies film per year... But it was deemed probably cheaper to use Danny Kaye instead, which, I do not have a problem with either.This is one of my favourite flicks of all time, maybe it is "So Bad it is Good" but maybe it just has a lot of stuff going on. In that respect, it was probably better to pare the format down to the use of 1 Danny Kaye per film compared to using 15 other screen/radio/opera/dance personalities per film.

This is one of the movies selected to the FIFTY WORST FILMS book by Harry Medved. And while I agree it is really bad, I'm not sure it reached the level of wretchedness needed to merit inclusion in the book--but it sure is close enough that I can't fault its mention. The only reason that I would not have included it is because although it's very bad, there are SMALL glimpses of actual entertainment scattered about. The problem is, is it worth slogging through all the awfulness and boredom to find it? I say "NO"!!! Avoid this film like the plague! If you don't believe me, read on,....The film starts with Adolph Menjou screening his latest production to a preview audience. They are laughing convulsively--a real problem since the film is a romantic drama! So, aware that his instincts are failing him, Menjou goes in search of someone to give him advice on what people really like. He picks a lady who has nothing to do with the movie industry and blindly listens to everything she says even though she has no idea what she's talking about. So, in other words, millions and millions of dollars are delegated based on this lady who Menjou nicknames "Miss Humanity". This idea is stupid and the nickname totally annoying. It gets worse, believe me.Then, the film becomes a giant "everything but the kitchen sink" extravaganza, where every few minutes, the action (such as it is) is punctuated by rather random song, dance, ventriloquism or comedy numbers. Ostensibly, the film is a variety show thinly connected by the plot. Oddly, however, the acts are generally just awful and probably won't appeal overall to anyone! After all, in some segments, there is opera, while in others it's Edgar Bergan and Charlie McCarthy, in another it's ballet or modern dance, and in others it's the incredibly unfunny antics of the Ritz Brothers. I honestly find it very hard to believe that all these incredibly divergent styles of entertainment will appeal to anyone--they may like some but hate the rest. Think about it--is there ANYONE who loves opera and ballet as well as the Ritz Brothers?! Frankly, I hate them all (especially the Ritz Brothers) and doubt if my opinion is much different from the average person. Yet, Miss Humanity seemed to like this and thought the average person would like this hodge-podge! As I mentioned above, the Ritz Brothers play quite prominently in the film. A couple times they were MILDLY funny, but most of the time they were like walking, talking migraines! I am a HUGE fan of silent and early sound comedy and think they were perhaps the most annoying comedy team ever. Their antics were far less funny and sophisticated than the Three Stooges and their act consisted mainly of annoying people! In addition, someone gave them a song to sing that is among the most UNINTENTIONALLY funny and obscene songs ever written--as they repeat the same word AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN--in fact, this is the entire chorus (it's a euphemism for BOTH a cat and part of a female's anatomy).There's a lot more I didn't like about the film, such as the countless times Menjou said to his talent scout "Basil, drop it" (it was funny the first time but not again and again) and the "Romeo and Juliet" song and dance number. Don't watch this unless you are trying to watch all 50 of the films in Medved's book or unless you are a masochist--it's THAT bad!PS--A final observation. So far, all but one of the many reviews for this film were either negative or extremely negative--with most scores being in the one to two-star range. So, how does this movie have an overall IMDb rating of 5.4 (as of 1/31/07)?! Occasionally, I think some people are deliberately flooding certain films with overly negative or positive scores to unduly influence the ratings. I observed a BAD Humphrey Bogart recently that actually had a much higher percentage of scores of 10 than CASABLANCA--even though the overall score was still quite low. This doesn't make any sense. Believe me when I say 5.4 is WAY TOO HIGH A SCORE to be believed!PPS--Look close--it's a very young Alan Ladd who is singing (badly) at the piano in Menjou's office.

Some reviewers hated this movie and, admittedly, it is relatively plot-free, but it's such a time capsule of movies, acts, and music of the period that I love it. If you ignore the script and realize you're listening to some FABULOUS Gershwin songs and that you're seeing The Ritz Brothers, Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy and others, it can be pretty great. Unlike the some others, I love the Ritz Brothers' specialty about the cats. Some people just don't appreciate silly. Later on, they get bogged down in the plotlessness, but WOW!! . . the kitty cat number is hilarious!!!!!!!! "Where is the gosh, darn cat?????" Some people just don't appreciate silly. Lighten up, people!!Face it, the movie studios of the day used to trot out all their stars for these Cast of Several movies. Take it for what it is. It was never meant to be "Gone With the Wind". It's more along the lines of "Hollywood Party" (1934) . . Enjoy!!

Mostly dreadful and overlong this "Follies" attempt patches together a lame plot with a variety of acts.Adolphe Menjou is fine as the movie producer who hires Andrea Leeds to give him the "human touch" in his films. He falls for her but she's in love with a hamburger slinger (Kenny Baker) she tricks Menjou into hiring for his new film. Throw into this stew Vera Zorina as a temperamental ballet star and you have the framework for this film.Edgar Bergen (and dummy) provide some humor, especially in a funny bit with radio star Phil Baker. Helen Jepson sings a few numbers (she's no Jeanette MacDonald), Bobby Clark plays the harried casting director, Ella Logan (trying to be Martha Raye) is the chaperone, Nydia Westman is the friend, Frank Shields (tennis pro and grandfather to Brooke) is the assistant director to Jerome Cowan. The Ritz Brothers (dreadful as usual) have one funny bit and stink in the rest of their appearance. Alan Ladd has a bit as an auditioning singer.