The Theatre: New Plays in Manhattan: Jan. 15, 1934

Ziegfeld Follies (presented by Mrs. Florenz ["Billie Burke"] Ziegfeld; staged by Bobby Connolly and John Murray Anderson; settings by Watson Barratt and Albert R. Johnson; songs by Billy Rose, Vernon Duke, Samuel Pokrass and Dana Suesse). Florenz Ziegfeld spent only $13,000 on his first Follies in 1907. Critic Percy Hammond called it a "loud and leering orgy of indelicacy and suggestiveness." A huge success, it began a tradition for gorgeous extravaganzas. Every year, with a mounting disdain of money, Ziegfeld put on a new edition of his Follies. After 1910 all but one opened in Manhattan's New Amsterdam Theatre in mid-June, usually played to out-of-town visitors until the following spring. Ziegfeld called the 1927 edition his last, spent $300,000 to mount it. It ran for 60 weeks. In 1931 he put on his positively last Follies at his own Ziegfeld Theatre. In July 1932 the old grandee died in Hollywood. Last summer Broadway's two great salvage men, Lee and J. J. Shubert, contracted for the great name "Ziegfeld Follies" from Billie Burke Ziegfeld. They immediately set about giving their name a show. Knowing the Shuberts' famed pinchbeck failings, Mrs. Ziegfeld began by passing on director, cast, sets and costumes. Since she was acting in Hollywood in Universal's Only Yesterday, names and sketches were submitted to her by mail, telephone and telegraph. After a false start on the road and the addition of $50,000 worth of scenery and costumes, the Shuberts wrung their hands and announced "a new policy of hiring the best talent, like Florenz Ziegfeld himself." When the 1934 Ziegfeld Follies opened last week in Manhattan, the Shuberts' name was not on the program. But it was not needed, for the opening occurred not at the New Amsterdam or the Ziegfeld, but at the Shuberts' own Winter Garden where for 13 winters they used to put on their tinselly Passing Shows.

John Murray Anderson's Ziegfeld Follies is fast and funny. It remembers Ziegfeld only in title and opulent manner. It has magnificent sets: Fifth Avenue from a bustop, a store window, a huge smear of prairie with phantom cowboys and dogies.* It has Fanny Brice and little, shrugging Willie Howard with his brother Eugene, comedians of, by and for Broadway. It has beauteous Jane Froman and commanding Everett Marshall to sing. It has a pair of Astaire-like dancers in Vilma and Buddy Ebsen. It has an incredible acrobatic child named June Preisser. It has good songs: "Suddenly," "Moon About Town," "I Like the Likes of You" and "To the Beat of the Heart." It has flocks of pretty, nimble girls, twittering in and out, nearly lost behind beautiful costumes. And, above all, on opening night it had in the audience Critic Hammond to announce that it ". . . breaks all known records for public obscenity."