Three girls get a chance to being new Ziegfeld girls. Elevator girl Sheila Regan (Lana Turner) with boyfriend Gilbert Young (James Stewart) finds herself pursued by a millionaire. Susan Gallagher (Judy Garland) has to abandon her vaudeville act with her father. Sandra Kolter (Hedy Lamarr) is a mystery woman from overseas.The cast is filled with legendary names. That alone makes this an interesting movie. Each girl's story is compelling to some extent. At least, it's interesting to watch the legendary beauties. The least interesting is the actual Ziegfeld Follies. It's only a line of beauties walking down the stairs in costumes. The song and dance for the three is mostly walking around. It's not much of a song and dance play. Judy Garland doing vaudeville with her show business father is far more interesting. Of course, she is perfectly comfortable with that. Lana Turner gets to play opposite Jimmy Stewart and has the juicier story. Hedy Lamarr has the least compelling story which ends with simply walking away. All in all, it's a great star watch and a functional musical.

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.

The three girls here are Hedy Lamarr, Lana Turner and Judy Garland. Turner is discovered, not sipping sodas but running an elevator. One of Ziegfeld's scouts finds Garland performing with her father in burlesque. Hedy Lamarr happens to be there just because her boyfriend is auditioning for a place in the orchestra. These three girls are all chosen as Ziegfeld girls, and while the glamorous Lamar and Turner both have leading roles in the musical number, Garland is featured in the chorus. One will make it to the top of the wedding cake; another will retire to be a wife, and the third will end up in tragedy.This is an unofficial sequel to The Great Ziegfeld with the focus on the girls rather than the man behind the scenes. He is absent here, but the plot is something similar to some of the subplots from the original. Legengs of real life Ziegfeld girl scandals are still being talked about today with Turner an amalgamation of several real life Follies girls.Garland, who would later stand out in the supporting role of Marilyn Miller in the 1946 Jerome Kern musical bio Till the Clouds Roll By, is perky and sweet, but her character is no different than any of the roles that she played opposite Mickey Rooney. Here, she gets Jackie Cooper instead. Lamarr remains a beautiful block of ice, which leaves Turner to get the best scenes as a self- destructive train wreck.Musically, this is just as lavish looking as its predecessor and Tony Martin provides the voice for the Follies leading man who makes a play for Lamarr even though he's marriedLamarr does get to liven up in a confrontation with the wife that takes a different turn. James Stewart also has a rather thankless part as Turner's boyfriend who ends up involved with gangsters. Smaller roles played by Charles Winninger, Edward Everett Horton and Eve Arden are brief but memorable. Dan Dailey has a nir as a low-class brute who abuses the down on her luck Turner. Garland explodes finally in her big production number, Minnie From Trinidad, where she dances with a chubby but talented hoofer and appears to be propelled high up on a platform with only bamboo poles lifting it.This propelled Turner into stardom and showed that she was more than just another blonde beauty. She really gives her all acting wise. Some elements make this seem forced and an artificial view if the Fillies, but as directed by Robert Z. Leonard, it is a worth-while follow up to the original.

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.