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A glorious revue preceded by a terrible movie.
Motion Picture News (Dec 7. 1929)
Date of Release: Dec 7, 1929
Studio: Paramount
Director: Millard Webb
Screenplay: J. P. McEvoy, Millard Webb
Composers: Irving Berlin, Walter Donaldson, Larry Spier, Dave Stampner
Musical Director: Frank Tours
Choreographer: Ted Shawn and John W. Harkrider, Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.,
Leading Actors: Mary Eaton (Gloria Hughes), Eddie Cantor, Helen Morgan, Rudy Vallee,
Dan Healy (Miller), Kaye Renard ('Mooney'), Edward Crandall (Buddy), Gloria Shea (Barbara) (as Olive Shea), Sarah Edwards (Mrs. Hughes), Singing and Dancing Chorus of Seventy-Five Glorified Beauties
Glorifying the American Girl opens with a montage of women parading over a map of America. This is replaced by women sadly doing domestic chores and working, who morph into women in gorgeous costumes parading on a stage. These images are overlaid crowds of people walking, and cars going by. The incongruous images set the tone for a film riddled with clichés, a terrible script, and lavish revue scenes.
At the company picnic, we meet Gloria (Mary Eaton), Buddy (Edward Crandall) and their third wheel Barbara (Gloria Shea). Buddy is madly in love with Gloria, but she has dreams of being on the stage. Barbara is in love with Buddy, but is always left behind. Gloria dances for the crowd, and Miller (Dan Healy) asks her to be his partner in his act, “Miller and Mooney”. Gloria agrees and jumps on the next train.
At the theatre, Gloria is miserable. She misses Buddy, she’s sick of life on the road, the greasy food, and Miller’s unwanted advances. With encouragement from her pushy mother (Sarah Edwards), Gloria signs a contract with Miller agreeing to split everything they earn fifty/fifty. Of course, Gloria is unaware that an agent for Ziegfeld himself has taken interest, and in agreeing to the contract, her chances of stardom are jeopardized.
Miller and Mooney make their way to New York, where Gloria is happily reunited with Buddy. In the chaos at the train station, Barbara is left behind and hit by a truck. Realizing that Gloria is still focused on her stardom, Buddy returns miserably to his apartment. He learns of Barbara’s accident, and rushes to her side at the hospital where he promises to never leave her again.
Meanwhile, Gloria has finally landed the starring role in the Ziegfeld Follies. At her opening night, she is a triumph. The radiance of the night is dimmed when she receives a telegram from Buddy informing her that he and Barbara have married. Gloria realizes she has sacrificed love to be a star, and the curtain closes.
Studio: Paramount
Director: Millard Webb
Screenplay: J. P. McEvoy, Millard Webb
Composers: Irving Berlin, Walter Donaldson, Larry Spier, Dave Stampner
Musical Director: Frank Tours
Choreographer: Ted Shawn and John W. Harkrider, Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.,
Leading Actors: Mary Eaton (Gloria Hughes), Eddie Cantor, Helen Morgan, Rudy Vallee,
Dan Healy (Miller), Kaye Renard ('Mooney'), Edward Crandall (Buddy), Gloria Shea (Barbara) (as Olive Shea), Sarah Edwards (Mrs. Hughes), Singing and Dancing Chorus of Seventy-Five Glorified Beauties
Glorifying the American Girl opens with a montage of women parading over a map of America. This is replaced by women sadly doing domestic chores and working, who morph into women in gorgeous costumes parading on a stage. These images are overlaid crowds of people walking, and cars going by. The incongruous images set the tone for a film riddled with clichés, a terrible script, and lavish revue scenes.
At the company picnic, we meet Gloria (Mary Eaton), Buddy (Edward Crandall) and their third wheel Barbara (Gloria Shea). Buddy is madly in love with Gloria, but she has dreams of being on the stage. Barbara is in love with Buddy, but is always left behind. Gloria dances for the crowd, and Miller (Dan Healy) asks her to be his partner in his act, “Miller and Mooney”. Gloria agrees and jumps on the next train.
At the theatre, Gloria is miserable. She misses Buddy, she’s sick of life on the road, the greasy food, and Miller’s unwanted advances. With encouragement from her pushy mother (Sarah Edwards), Gloria signs a contract with Miller agreeing to split everything they earn fifty/fifty. Of course, Gloria is unaware that an agent for Ziegfeld himself has taken interest, and in agreeing to the contract, her chances of stardom are jeopardized.
Miller and Mooney make their way to New York, where Gloria is happily reunited with Buddy. In the chaos at the train station, Barbara is left behind and hit by a truck. Realizing that Gloria is still focused on her stardom, Buddy returns miserably to his apartment. He learns of Barbara’s accident, and rushes to her side at the hospital where he promises to never leave her again.
Meanwhile, Gloria has finally landed the starring role in the Ziegfeld Follies. At her opening night, she is a triumph. The radiance of the night is dimmed when she receives a telegram from Buddy informing her that he and Barbara have married. Gloria realizes she has sacrificed love to be a star, and the curtain closes.
From L-R: Mary Eaton, Edward Crandall, and Gloria Shea. Still from Picture Play Magazine (Jan 1930)
The critics found Glorifying the American Girl to be sloppy and tedious. They hated the quick transitions between color and black and white, dismissed the music as boring or old, and lampooned the cast as “amateurish”.
Watching the copy available on YouTube (presented without the color sequences), I generally tend to agree. The script is trite, with one cliché after another – complete with a love song in a row boat, a car accident that leaves the victim in hospital with her head wrapped in white gauze, and a talented store clerk who dreams of nothing but stardom.
A few performances stand out from the drudgery. Mary Eaton gives a solid performance as Gloria, and her dancing throughout the film is wonderful. A real-life Follies girl, Eaton was was one of seven siblings in show business.
The dancing was choreographed by Ted Shawn, a highly influential and respected dancer and choreographer who founded Jacob's Pillow. He appeared in a few early films including Dances of the Ages (1913) and Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916), though the vast majority of his work was on the stage. A wonderful biography can be found at Jacob’s Pillow.
When we first meet Sarah Edwards, playing Gloria’s mother Mrs. Hughes, she has a great comedic moment playing with her faulty reading glasses. Even with the scandalous exclamation of “dammit!” the shtick grows old when it repeats itself several times throughout the film. Born in Wales, Edwards became known for playing motherly type roles.
Gloria Shea, who at this time was appearing under the name Olive Shea, is delightful as Barbara. We barely hear her speak until her delirious calls for Buddy from her hospital bed, but her facial expressions do much to convey the desire of the oft-ignored Barbara. Shea appeared in over forty films including The Night Mayor (1932), Women Won’t Tell (1932), Dance, Girl, Dance (1933), and The Last Days of Pompeii (1935). A car accident reportedly shortened her career, though she lived until she was 85.
Edward Crandall is forgettable as Buddy, but Dan Healy plays an excellent womanizing villain. His awful nature is furthered when he cheats two African American porters out of their tip by tossing a coin and claiming “Alright boys, double or nothing for your tip. Looks like it’s nothing.” Crandall and Healy both found more work on Broadway than in Hollywood.
Watching the copy available on YouTube (presented without the color sequences), I generally tend to agree. The script is trite, with one cliché after another – complete with a love song in a row boat, a car accident that leaves the victim in hospital with her head wrapped in white gauze, and a talented store clerk who dreams of nothing but stardom.
A few performances stand out from the drudgery. Mary Eaton gives a solid performance as Gloria, and her dancing throughout the film is wonderful. A real-life Follies girl, Eaton was was one of seven siblings in show business.
The dancing was choreographed by Ted Shawn, a highly influential and respected dancer and choreographer who founded Jacob's Pillow. He appeared in a few early films including Dances of the Ages (1913) and Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916), though the vast majority of his work was on the stage. A wonderful biography can be found at Jacob’s Pillow.
When we first meet Sarah Edwards, playing Gloria’s mother Mrs. Hughes, she has a great comedic moment playing with her faulty reading glasses. Even with the scandalous exclamation of “dammit!” the shtick grows old when it repeats itself several times throughout the film. Born in Wales, Edwards became known for playing motherly type roles.
Gloria Shea, who at this time was appearing under the name Olive Shea, is delightful as Barbara. We barely hear her speak until her delirious calls for Buddy from her hospital bed, but her facial expressions do much to convey the desire of the oft-ignored Barbara. Shea appeared in over forty films including The Night Mayor (1932), Women Won’t Tell (1932), Dance, Girl, Dance (1933), and The Last Days of Pompeii (1935). A car accident reportedly shortened her career, though she lived until she was 85.
Edward Crandall is forgettable as Buddy, but Dan Healy plays an excellent womanizing villain. His awful nature is furthered when he cheats two African American porters out of their tip by tossing a coin and claiming “Alright boys, double or nothing for your tip. Looks like it’s nothing.” Crandall and Healy both found more work on Broadway than in Hollywood.
The highlight of the film is the Ziegfeld Revue, “Glorifying the American Girl.” Outside the theatre, real-life radio host Norman Brokenshire announces the arriving celebrities, including cameo appearances from Flo Ziegfeld and his wife Billie Burke (famed Broadway actress who is perhaps best remembered as Glinda in The Wizard of Oz), and the President of Paramount Studios, Adolph Zukor.
Clever edits between shots of the program, the audience, and the stage help to create the illusion of being at the theatre.
The footage of the revue numbers is so different to the rest of the film, I wonder if it wasn’t filmed at the theatre itself, though film historian Edwin M. Bradley states the revue was filmed “on a massive replica of the New Amsterdam Theatre”. The numbers without Mary Eaton are filmed in long shorts, giving us a view of the whole stage and proscenium arch. When the camera zooms in for tighter shots, it pans awkwardly along the stage. The first scene, a Garden of Eden tableau, does read better in color (also available on YouTube), with the pre-Code near-nudity and beautiful bodies clearly on display, though this doesn't account for the unimaginative shots.
In contrast, the numbers featuring Mary Eaton, an art-nouveau “Swan Lake” ballet, and “There Must Be Somebody Waiting for Me in Loveland,” are beautifully filmed, and it’s a pity the Technicolor footage is not publicly available. There are a variety of camera angles, including a great shot from the top of the proscenium looking down on the stage, and snappy edits that show off Eaton’s wonderful dancing, and the stunning Follies revue costumes.
Three extra scenes featuring Eddie Cantor, Rudy Valley (still no more likeable than his appearance in his film of the same name), and Helen Morgan, are also filmed differently from the rest of the film. Eddie Cantor’s tailor shop sketch, also featuring Louis Sorin (Mother's Boy and Lucky in Love) was hailed by several critics claimed as the saving grace of the film, and still holds up today. According to Bradley, these literal inserts were taken from shorts filmed by Robert Florey to try and boost publicity for the film.
Big names and publicity, which included tie-ins with local jewelry stores and beauty parlors, could not save the film. Glorifying the American Girl opened to scathing reviews, and played to mediocre houses. Mary Eaton did not find any more roles available to her, and she eventually became an alcoholic. She died from severe cirrhosis in her mid-forties.
Glorifying the American Girl is available to watch on YouTube. Skip to the last thirty minutes for the glorious revue.
Clever edits between shots of the program, the audience, and the stage help to create the illusion of being at the theatre.
The footage of the revue numbers is so different to the rest of the film, I wonder if it wasn’t filmed at the theatre itself, though film historian Edwin M. Bradley states the revue was filmed “on a massive replica of the New Amsterdam Theatre”. The numbers without Mary Eaton are filmed in long shorts, giving us a view of the whole stage and proscenium arch. When the camera zooms in for tighter shots, it pans awkwardly along the stage. The first scene, a Garden of Eden tableau, does read better in color (also available on YouTube), with the pre-Code near-nudity and beautiful bodies clearly on display, though this doesn't account for the unimaginative shots.
In contrast, the numbers featuring Mary Eaton, an art-nouveau “Swan Lake” ballet, and “There Must Be Somebody Waiting for Me in Loveland,” are beautifully filmed, and it’s a pity the Technicolor footage is not publicly available. There are a variety of camera angles, including a great shot from the top of the proscenium looking down on the stage, and snappy edits that show off Eaton’s wonderful dancing, and the stunning Follies revue costumes.
Three extra scenes featuring Eddie Cantor, Rudy Valley (still no more likeable than his appearance in his film of the same name), and Helen Morgan, are also filmed differently from the rest of the film. Eddie Cantor’s tailor shop sketch, also featuring Louis Sorin (Mother's Boy and Lucky in Love) was hailed by several critics claimed as the saving grace of the film, and still holds up today. According to Bradley, these literal inserts were taken from shorts filmed by Robert Florey to try and boost publicity for the film.
Big names and publicity, which included tie-ins with local jewelry stores and beauty parlors, could not save the film. Glorifying the American Girl opened to scathing reviews, and played to mediocre houses. Mary Eaton did not find any more roles available to her, and she eventually became an alcoholic. She died from severe cirrhosis in her mid-forties.
Glorifying the American Girl is available to watch on YouTube. Skip to the last thirty minutes for the glorious revue.
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