Glorifying the American Girl

I found this film on a research trip. I’d never heard of it before.

The research trip in question was of the Googlish variety. I’m not even going to tell you what I was researching (not yet, anyway) but this film moves to the top of my personal to-be-watched list.

From Wikipedia:

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.

Add that to that the fact that Glorifying the American Girl (1929) was produced by Florenz Ziegfeld (yes: that Ziegfeld) and was the first talkie to use the word “damn” (not once, but several times) and you’re on your way to a film that would end up making history, though for all the wrong reasons.

I gotta see it! Apparently Paramount didn’t renew the copyright and Glorifying the American Girl is in the public domain. But which public domain? I gotta get my mitts on a copy. If you’ve got any ideas -- or have seen the film -- let me know.

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