Anna Held was the first wife of legendary showman Flo Ziegfeld, and also the star of many of his productions. By all accounts, she had some talent as an actress and a singer and a dancer, but her greatest appeal for audiences was undoubtedly her physical beauty, most notably her astonishing figure. Tightly corseted from early girlhood, she had an extremely narrow waist and wide voluptuous hips, making Held one of the most splendid exemplars of an hourglass figure.
Ziegfeld's real genius was for publicity, and some of his best publicity stunts were concocted for Anna Held. Ziegfeld realised that fashionable ladies would want to emulate Held's appearance, but he knew that her most distinctive feature -- her wasp-waisted physique -- was unattainable, so (in an era when only working-class people had sun tans) he publicised her creamy-white complexion. Ziegfeld issued press releases claiming (untruthfully) that Held bathed in milk, and he had gallons of milk conspicuously portaged to her hotel suite for the benefit of the press. Reportedly, dairy sales to upper-class neighbourhoods skyrocketed.
This 1901 film is ostensibly an excerpt from Anna Held's starring performance in 'Papa's Bride', a musical with songs by Reginald De Koven. I viewed the Library of Congress print after consulting some materials loaned to me by Reginald De Koven IV, a midwestern businessman who is a direct descendant of the composer. Without that supplementary information, it would have been difficult for me to figure out what's going on in this brief movie.
In 'Papa's Bride', Anna Held is a naive convent girl who has been pressured into marrying Baron Florestan, a wealthy elderly lecher. The baron's strait-laced son Aristide is concerned that the baron will squander his wealth on actresses, so he has arranged for the baron to wed pretty young Anna in the hope that the baron will settle down. But Aristide wants to be sure of his own inheritance, so he contrives that Anna's marriage isn't actually legal. Baron Florestan invites several pretty actresses to his wedding feast. Young Anna is both innocent and demure: she has never tasted alcohol. Now she sips champagne for the first time, and proceeds to get progressively more giddy (the libretto prefers the adjective 'gay'), until eventually she dances and sings boisterously, to the merriment of the actresses. At this point Aristide enters, and is scandalised by what he sees.
In the film -- which is very brief -- Anna Held merely takes repeated sups of champagne, but she does so in character ... first taking a hesitant sip, then taking progressively larger draughts while her behaviour becomes more expansive. She displays a range of facial expressions here, pretending to become intoxicated yet retaining her basic dignity and composure. At this point in the stage version of 'Papa's Bride', Anna Held burst into song. Here, as there's no soundtrack, she doesn't even pretend to be singing.
This brief glimpse of a Belle Epoque superstar conveys enough of Anna Held's charming stage presence and sex appeal to make me regret that she never starred in a feature-length sound film. There's very little to see here, but all of it is delightful: for that reason, and for its historic value, I'll rate this movie 10 out of 10.
