It stars William Powell as the theatrical impresario Florenz "Flo" Ziegfeld Jr., Luise Rainer as Anna Held, and Myrna Loy as Billie Burke.

The "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody" set alone was reported to have cost US$220,000 (US$4,830,504 in 2023 dollars[3]),[4] featuring a towering rotating volute of 70 ft (21 m) diameter with 175 spiral steps, weighing 100 tons.

The extravagant costumes were designed by Adrian, taking some 250 tailors and seamstresses six months to prepare them using 50 pounds (23 kg) of silver sequins and 12 yards (11 m)[clarify] of white ostrich plumes.

It won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture for producer Hunt Stromberg, Best Actress for Luise Rainer, and Best Dance Direction for Seymour Felix, and was nominated for four others.

Shaken by the reversal of his financial fortunes and the growing popularity of movies over live stage shows, he becomes seriously ill. Billings pays him a friendly visit, and the two men agree to become partners in a new, even grander production of The Ziegfeld Follies.

[6] Macguire had initially proposed the biographical film to them in the form of a "filmusical entertainment" set in a "theatrical tradition" and William Powell was cast as Ziegfeld.

However, by February 1935, Macguire had fallen into disagreement with Universal over financial problems at the studio,[5] and the entire production, including some already constructed sets and musical arrangements, was sold to MGM for US$300,000 (US$6,666,990 in 2023 dollars[3]).

As part of the deal however, Universal retained the services of Powell for the classic screwball comedy My Man Godfrey, which was released the same year as The Great Ziegfeld.

[4][7] The cost exceeded US$2 million (US$44,446,602 in 2023 dollars[3]) by the end of the production in early 1936,[8] exorbitant for the period, and it was MGM's most expensive film to date after Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925).

[7] Frank S. Nugent of The New York Times said of the script: "What William Anthony McGuire has attempted in his screen play, and with general success, is to encompass not merely the fantastic personal history of Ziegfeld but the cross-sectional story of the development of the Follies, the Midnight Frolic on the New Amsterdam Roof and the other theatrical enterprises floated under the Glorifier's aegis during a span of about forty years.

[20] However, McGuire did capture a number of Ziegfeld's traits, such as sending telegrams to people even in close proximity, his belief that elephants were a symbol of good luck, his exquisite taste in costumes and design, and perfectionism over his productions, especially lighting and rostrum pedestaling.

[4] Featured in the film are William Powell as Ziegfeld, Myrna Loy as Billie Burke, Luise Rainer as Anna Held, Nat Pendleton as Eugen Sandow, and Frank Morgan.

"[22] Many of the performers of the earlier Broadway version of the Ziegfeld Follies were cast in the film as themselves, including Fanny Brice and Harriet Hoctor, the ballet dancer and contortionist.

[24] Fanny Brice appears as a comedian in the abridged song sequence "My Man" and played an effective version of herself in addition to her routine comic role as the funny girl.

[4][25] Nat Pendleton, a freestyle wrestler who had won the silver medal at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp and had appeared alongside Powell in The Thin Man (1934), was cast as the circus strongman Eugen Sandow.

[27] In 1922, Miller had given an interview in which she accused him of "making love to chorus girls" and sending her a diamond ring as "big as her hand";[27] this essence of Ziegfeld's character is captured in the film.

Howard Gutner documents that due to MGM's wealth and the high budget, Adrian indulged in "sheer lavishness" in making the costumes, surpassing anything he had done previously.

[32] It took 250 tailors and seamstresses six months to sew the costumes that Adrian had designed for the film, using 50 pounds (23 kg) of silver sequins and 12 yards (11 m) of white ostrich plumes.

[9] The costumes worn by women in the film are diverse, varying from "puffy hooped skirts to catlike leotards" to "layers of tulle and chiffron", with the men mostly wearing black tuxedos.

The chorus continues to sing as the stage rotates through excerpts from romantic musical history, eventually reaching “Rhapsody in Blue” and an elaborate dance number.

[37] In the film she believes that womanhood is defined by the "young, white, blond and slender" female, which in the sequence are "delineated as the fluffy, artificial tiers of costuming and staging".

[4][14] Variety called the Hoctor ballet "in itself intricate with its maneuverings of six Russian wolfhounds in terp formations",[7] and said that the "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody" sequence in the film is a "nifty Berlin tune [which] becomes the fulcrum for one of Frank Skinner's best arrangements as Arthur Lange batons the crescendos into a mad, glittering potpourri of Saint-Saëns and Gershwin, Strauss and Verdi, beautifully blended against the Berlinesque background.

[15] Thomas S. Hischak has said that the film has rarely been topped for pure showmanship and glamor, [12] and Variety considered it an "outstanding picture", a "symbol of a tradition of show business".

[7] Variety praised the performances of the cast, remarking that as Ziegfeld, William Powell "endows the impersonation with all the qualities of a great entrepreneur and sentimentalist without sacrificing the shades and moods called for" and noting that Luise Rainer is "tops of the femmes with her vivacious Anna Held".

"[47] Frank S. Nugent of The New York Times was also highly praising of the film, noting that it had "more stars than there are in the heavens" and remarking that "the picture achieves its best moments in the larger sequences devoted to the Girls — ballet, chorus and show.

"[14] John Mosher of The New Yorker called it "the most lavish display the screen has had to offer" with chorus numbers that were "gigantic and effective", though he found the romance to be "peculiarly average screen-story stuff.

Harrison Carroll of the Los Angeles Herald-Express, however, sympathized with the difficulty of her role in portraying a prominent living actress, confessing that he was pleased that Loy did not attempt to imitate Burke's mannerisms.

"[9] David Parkinson of Empire gave the film three out of five stars and concluded that it "Drags in places and doesn't even try for a true-to-life portrait of the great theatre entrepreneur but it's shiny and big spectacle with impressive choreography.

"[53] Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader called it "amazingly dull, even with William Powell in the lead and guest appearances by the likes of Ray Bolger and Fanny Brice.

"[55] James Berardinelli awarded it two and a half out of four stars, stating that "although some of the production's technical aspects remain impressive, the dramatic elements come across as trite and many of the musical numbers are dated", but said that it was a "reasonably competent – albeit "airbrushed" – presentation of the main character's life.