MOVIE REVIEW : Josephine Baker Surfaces in 2 French Films

In “ZouZou” and “Princess Tam Tam” (opening today for one week at the Nuart), two 1930s French films now revived after half a century of neglect, the legendary French cabaret star Josephine Baker has a great, boisterous presence that irradiates the screen, making it leap with arcs of eroticism and show-biz razzmatazz.

Baker, the young black girl from St. Louis who became the sensation of the Folies Bergere in the ‘20s, starred in these sparkling, foolishly endearing films at the height of her career. And like many great musical stars, she is bigger than her vehicles.

Both movies were written by her patron-manager-lover, an Italian count named Pepino Abatino. The count is a pretty lousy writer--even though he had other professionals to handle the dialogue. “Zou Zou,” one of France’s biggest box-office hits of 1934, is a blatant rip-off of the Warner Bros.-Busby Berkeley backstage musicals, and “Princess Tam Tam” is an outrageous primitivism-versus-civilization fable that casts Baker as the desert goddess of Paris.

Abatino’s scripts aren’t even decent hack jobs. They are the silly dabblings of a rich dilettante who relishes pop culture but is too lazy or too inexperienced to get it right. “Zou Zou,” which French audiences preferred, was directed by Marc Allegret, a prolific and competent studio professional--and Andre Gide’s nephew--who did Pagnol’s 1932 “Fanny.” Baker’s male lead was the young Jean Gabin--his major stardom just begun, the first of his immortal ‘30s roles two years away--who plays a randy, sea-loving stage electrician and does one Chevalier-like song and dance.

“Tam Tam” was directed by Edmond Greville. The musical numbers, direction and acting are weaker. But the images are more polished and exotic-looking, it has the better dance number--the impromptu chateau jungle bop--and the convoluted plot conveniently suggests a third-world mythos, fresh for exegesis.

Baker’s physical presence may also come as something of a surprise. When we think of her now, we may remember the high-style “Vanity Fair” photographs of the ‘20s. There her lips are imposingly full, her eyes sultry and half-lidded, and the lacquered, flat, spit-curl coiffure of a Parisian coquette improbably tops classic Afro-American features. They accentuate Baker’s alleged appeal as a wild sexual primitive, set loose in the Gallic fleshpots and capable of anything.

But, in the films, Baker projects a different persona: She is healthy and high-spirited, bursting with enthusiasm, delighted at the adulation and applause being showered on her. There is a gawky athleticism as she bends herself double, knocks knees and splits the air with high kicks. But, we can still see why she electrified French audiences. She was the antithesis of the cool chorines and blonde danseuses all around her. And Baker’s voice, a sometimes achingly pure soprano, may have seemed like a lyric soul within this lunging, leaping body.

Great pop singers--Piaf, Chevalier, Garland, Jolson--generate a certain poignancy. Their torch songs get lustered over with nostalgia and tears. Baker’s “Haiti” number in “Zou Zou” has that effect. Suspended high above her audience in a golden stage cage, swinging softly, her body barely covered by strategic wisps of white feathers, Baker yearningly sings the Vincent Scotto song; her pronunciation--”Haw-ee-tee”--makes it sound infinitely precious, fragile as bird-song or dreams. She is a conquering queen; she’s a bird in a gilded cage. Even as the stage eroticism crackles, as Paris lies panting below, La Baker’s song is sweet and sad: a dream of a purer home long ago, far away.