Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Even though I am not a fan of this turkey, I decided to watch it again the other evening to see if it had improved.I remember so well, how disappointed and short-changed I had felt when I first saw this, about 50 years ago. Having seen and enjoyed THE GREAT ZIEGFELD, I was looking forward to seeing MGM provide some even more spectacular musical numbers for this supposed sequel.How wrong I was! I have never been impressed by the YOU STEPPED OUT OF A DREAM number, though I love Tony Martin's rendition of the song. He is referred to as a tenor by several people in this film, but he was actually a high baritone with a fabulous voice and was one of the great song stylists of the era.But Berkeley's staging of this number is so uninventive and the final, long-awaited pull-back, reveals one of the dullest sets ever built ( oh, that ugly staircase - come on MGM, surely you can do better than that?) it is a total let-down.On the plus side, Judy is bright and bursting with talent, Hedy looks her most divine and the supporting cast is full of old favourites (Eve Arden, Edward Everett Horton, Charles Winninger, Rose Hobart and a young but surprisingly good, Dan Dailey) with only the 20 year old Lana Turner totally out of her depth with the demanding role of a chorus girl sliding into alcoholism, prostitution and ruin.However, what really made me feel cheated 50 years ago - and still does today - was the cheapskate, cost-cutting rehash of the best musical numbers from the earlier THE GREAT ZIEGFELD (1936) standing in as the cut-price grand finale.When I first saw the film, I kept with it for over two hours because I felt sure MGM was surely saving the best until last, for an eye popping finale. I was not amused to then spot all the clips rehashed from the earlier film, to say nothing of the lame mix of new footage with Judy Garland dressed and bewigged to resemble Virginia Bruce, before dissolving to the original footage of the MELODY number, but with a new soundtrack using YOU STEPPED OUT OF A DREAM. Surely nobody was fooled back in 1941? As others have commented, maybe the money ran out or L B Mayer said that enough had been spent so corners must be cut. The other more likely explanation is that none of the production team - or Mr Berkeley - could come up with anything that could top the sheer amazing lavishness of the earlier "Pretty Girl is Like a Melody" number, so they resorted to this re-edited reprise instead.In fact, when one thinks about it, nobody else has ever come up with anything to top that incredible number, in the 80 years since it was filmed (at the then staggering cost of %250,000 - almost $5 million in today's money, for a number lasting just 15 minutes) So, what we get here are 132 minutes of soapy melodrama, a few good musical moments (mostly Judy's) and some over the top costumes. And by the way, I do not agree with other reviewers here that filming this in Technicolor would have improved matters.I doubt I shall ever sit through it all again.

For me -- a lover of the old MGM musicals -- this film doesn't quite come together. The whole seems to be less than the sum of its parts.For me, problem number one is that it seems to actually have little to do with Flo Ziegfeld. It may be the story of 3 young women who become Ziegfeld girls, but where exactly is there much about Flo Ziegfeld? The film is the sequel to the wonderful 1936 film "The Great Ziegfeld", but it just doesn't have the same sense of grandeur. I guess this is "The Sorta Good Ziegfeld".James Stewart -- maybe it worked in 1941, but today -- with the persona of Jimmy Stewart in our minds -- this characterization just doesn't work. This is a good role for the still young Judy Garland (still in her Andy Hardy days), but not one of her best. Hedy Lamarr does fine here, although -- as usual -- her acting is more about her beauty. Lana Turner is lovely, but at this point in her career she hasn't yet become the fine actress she later was. Tony Martin...eeh! Jackie Cooper...well, nice to see him, although his career was already in sharp decline. Ian Hunter turns in a nice performance as a sophisticate. Charles Winninger is entertaining as Garland's "pop", a vaudeville entertainer. Eve Arden plays Eve Arden (and that's good). Edward Everett Horton is entertaining as one of Flo Ziegfeld's right hand men. Philip Dorn is boring as a violinist (he had other much better roles). Dan Dailey plays a boxer with a negative attitude; he has one very good scene.In terms of the story, my first question is why are Jimmy Stewart and the other hoods wearing winter coats and hats in Palm Beach, Florida? But beyond that, the script follows 3 girls who each become Ziegfeld girls; how does each react to her fame? Garland -- the most successful of the three -- misses her vaudeville "Pop" who seems to have an outdated act. Turner turns out not so nice, dumping her boyfriend (Stewart), who wasn't very nice anyway, and he becomes a bootleg runner; meanwhile Turner gets fired from the show due to alcoholism. Lamarr...well, she floats around in the soup, but it was a bit difficult to figure out her issue, other than that she is the least dedicated to show business of the three. In terms of musical numbers, only two are striking -- "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" by Garland and "Mr. Gallagher & Mr. Shean" by Winninger and the real Al Shean! Overall, this musical just didn't catch my attention the way most MGM musicals do. And then they cheapened the finale by using segments from the fine 1938 film, which had spectacular sets, versus the vastly slimmed down 1941 sets...a mismatch. Not to mention the schmaltzy duck dream. This film was successful back in the day, but parts of it hardly held my attention.

Unless you are a largely uncritical fan of Lamarr, Garland or Turner or of musicals in general, this is not a good film to start with; unlike the zippy, racy, fast-paced films Busby Berkeley did with Warner Brothers in the early 30's (42nd Street, the Gold Diggers films),or the dazzling Technicolor Fox Musicals of the 1940's. this MGM effort suffers from an excess of melodrama and not enough music. MGM ruled musicals in the 1950's with major films like Singin' In Rain and The Bandwagon.Fortunately, Ziegfeld Girl does feature a bang-up, all-out, dazzling fur and feathers number "You Stepped Out Of A Dream" worth the more than two-hour drudgery of largely humorless soap opera, and it's sung by the late Tony Martin, featuring Hedy Lamarr as dazzling as she was ever going to look; unfortunately this number is early in the film, and there's a great deal of angst with Lana Turner hitting the skids as her truck-driving boyfriend (a miscast Jimmy Stewart, looking more than a little uncomfortable), mopes around the edges until she sobers up; This is not a bad film, merely, as frequently happens with MGM, in need of some judicious cutting; Garland is great fun in the "Minnie From Trinidad" number with dancers dangling dozens of bananas as arm decor, and Dan Dailey impressive as a deadbeat boxer; one wishes for more Eve Arden, as always, and one also wishes for the dazzling color of Ziegfeld Follies a few years later.

There is little that I could add to most of these reviews in terms of judging the quality of the movie.However, a couple of minor points have been missed.For one thing, one reviewer, who compared Tony Martin unfavorably to Frank S. and Dick Haymes, is comparing apples to oranges. Tony Martin was a relic of the 1930s in his classical singing style; it was already becoming obsolete by the time this movie was completed. By contrast, Frank and Dick Haymes were crooners—a very different kind of singing.Several reviewers have expressed a desire to see this movie in color, because of the dazzling costumes. The thing to remember is that we're seeing the film today on very different film than what it was originally printed on. Nitrate stock—the film that was used in 1941— showed blacks that were really black, and whites that were bright white, not shades of gray. This would have produced a very different visual experience for the audiences of 1941. For those viewers, the costumes, rather than merely appearing beautiful, would have been blindingly spectacular.It is unfortunate that the original nitrate prints have almost certainly disappeared forever.