GLORIFYING THE AMERICAN GIRL

'''Glorifying the American Girl''' is a 1929 musical comedy film produced by Florenz Ziegfeld that highlights Ziegfeld Follies performers. The last third of the film (which was filmed in early Technicolor) is basically a Follies production, with cameo appearances by Rudy Vallee, Helen Morgan and Eddie Cantor.

Contents

Production

Plot

Trivia

Pre-Code material

Cast

Cast appearing as themselves in the Revue Scenes

Preservation

Production

The script for the film was written by J.P. McEvoy and Millard Webb and directed by John W. Harkrider and Millard Webb. The songs were written by Irving Berlin, Walter Donaldson, Rudolf Friml, James E. Hanley, Larry Spier and Dave Stamper.

Plot

The plot involves a young woman (Mary Eaton) who wants to be in the Follies, but in the meantime is making ends meet by working at a department store's sheet music department, where she sings the latest hits. She is accompanied on piano by her childhood boyfriend (Edward Crandall), who is in love with her, despite her single-minded interest in her career. When a vaudeville performer (Dan Healy) asks her to join him as his new partner, she sees it as an attempt to make her dream come true. Upon arriving in the New York City, our heroine finds out that her new partner is only interested in sleeping with her and makes this a condition of making her a star. Soon, however, she is discovered by a representative of Ziegfeld.

Trivia

The movie contains brief shots of Noah Beery, Irving Berlin, Billie Burke, Charles B. Dillingham, Texas Guinan, Otto Kahn, Ring Lardner and Mayor of New York City Jimmy Walker as themselves. There is also an uncredited, non-speaking scene with Johnny Weissmuller wearing nothing but a fig leaf. The greater part of the final half of the film is a revue given over to a re-creation of a Follies production, replete with musical solos by Rudy Vallee and Helen Morgan and a comedy sketch with Eddie Cantor and Louis Sorin as a pair of Jewish tailors.

Pre-Code material

★ This Pre-Code movie is notable for being the first talkie to use the word "damn." The word is used on numerous occasions by Mary Eaton and Eddie Cantor.

★ The revue sequence contains virtual nudity and revealing costumes — the first feature-length film to do so in color.

★ Both Paramount and EMKA failed to renew the copyright and the film is now in the public domain.

Cast

★ Mary Eaton as Gloria Hughes

★ Dan Healy as Danny Miller

★ Kaye Renard as Mooney, Danny's Partner

★ Edward Crandall as Buddy Moore

★ Gloria Shea as Barbara, Heimer's Dept. Store Clerk (as Olive Shea)

★ Sarah Edwards as Mrs. Hughs, Gloria's Mom

Cast appearing as themselves in the Revue Scenes

★ Eddie Cantor

★ Helen Morgan

★ Rudy Vallee

★ Noah Beery

★ Irving Berlin

★ Billie Burke

★ Charles B. Dillingham

★ Texas Guinan

★ Otto Kahn

★ Ring Lardner

★ Jimmy Walker

★ Johnny Weissmuller

★ Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.

★ Adolph Zukor

★ Norman Brokenshire

★ Desha Delteil

★ Nancy Kelly

★ Bull Montana

★ Tony Sansone

★ Louis Sorin

Preservation

A black-and-white print currently shown on television (which was cut down to 87 minutes) was made in the 1950s and has a number of sequences cut due to their Pre-Code content (nudity, etc.). The film was restored, to the length of 96 minutes, with the original Technicolor sequences, by the UCLA Film and Television Archive.