FAQ

It has never really been made clear. When the film is shown on television, there is no picture during the sound prologue. However, two sequences from the prologue which are NOT in the Turner Classic Movies version of the film have turned up on the internet with sound and picture; they are also included as clips on the A&E biography "Great Ziegfeld". Although the picture for the story section of the film seems to have survived complete, there is supposed to be a sound sequence of Magnolia singing the traditional spiritual "Deep River", but so far there is no evidence that this sequence has survived or even once existed. During the first half of the film, we see Magnolia with a banjo, but the sequence as it exists now is silent with orchestral accompaniment.

There are about seven minutes of dialogue in this portion of the movie as it exists today, but then the sound cuts off, with not even a musical accompaniment, indicating that what we are watching was originally issued with a soundtrack. Reportedly, some of the soundtrack for this portion has recently been rediscovered on discs, which is rather odd considering the fact that the film used the Movietone system, a system placing the sound on the film rather than on a disc.