Synopsis
Zou Zou tries to help her childhood friend prove his innocence after he's accused of murder.
Zouzou
1934 Directed by Marc Allégret
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Alternative Title
Zou Zou
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'The film enchants me.... Everything seems easy, because I feel the story so very strongly. It all seems so real, so true, that I sometimes think it's my own life being played out on the sets' (Josephine Baker discussing her appearance in Zouzou)
Here's a vehicle for the utterly unique French/American singer and exotic dancer Josephine Baker as a laundress who replaces a temperamental performer in a stage revue and captivates the crowd in a star-making turn while at the same tame loving her childhood friend Jean Gabin, a sailor turned electrician who only has eyes for another.
This plays like a French version of such backstage Hollywood productions as 42nd Street and Footlight Parade and though there's nothing here…
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Zouzou feels like a French version of a pre-code Hollywood film, though I don’t believe French filmmakers ever had the equivalent of the Hays Code inflicted upon them. It has bawdy dialogue, scantily clad women, a silly plot, and an alluring star in Josephine Baker. Of course, the fact that Baker was an African-American and simply allowed to be a leading lady, without a lot made over her skin color, is something that was unthinkable in America at the time. There are a couple of other things you wouldn’t see in an American film; the F bomb is dropped in one scene, and there are a couple of instances of near toplessness. The film is light in tone and rather…
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Josephine Baker was a star like no other. She grew up poor in St. Louis and moved to New York at the height of the Harlem Renaissance when she was only 13 years old. Through incredible determination and drive, she achieved some early success in the chorus lines of “Black-cast” musical revues in the United States, but it wasn’t until she emigrated to Paris in 1925 that her career took flight. By 1926, she was the main attraction at the Folies Bergère. Hobnobbing with the likes of Hemingway, Picasso and Jean Cocteau during the heyday of Parisian Café Society, she vaulted into international stardom over the next few years. And her story only gets more interesting from there.
When considering…
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i can't believe she gets discovered while doing the gangnam style...
35mm. Quad Cinema.
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Bogged down by bad directing and a very convoluted plot. Gabin and Baker are great, and as a backstage musical showcasing Baker's charisma and talent, this should work. The first hour is fun and breezy, with Josephine Baker's delightful manic pixie dream girl giving even Audrey Hepburn a run for her money. Baker isn't trying to be the film's scene stealer, but every time she's on screen she's too radiant to look away from. Gabin is still perfecting his romancing charms but they make for a fun team. The last act is just such a mess! The musical numbers, clearly inspired by Busby Berkeley, are so utterly mediocre, both due to direction and poorly prepared dancers. Baker is great in…
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Move over Marlene Dietrich, Josephine Baker is my new 1930s waifu 😍😍😍
In all seriousness, this is a stunningly beautiful film, with gorgeous cinematography, great music, a tragic melodramatic story, and an amazing performance by Baker. If only the third act musical numbers weren’t so repetitive and laborious, and her whole motivations weren’t based on a man who is hardly established, the rating would’ve been higher. At the end I wanted her to literally and metaphorically break out of her cage and go be a strong independent woman you doesn’t need any man to make her happy. Zouzou is a Queen!
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A thin confection, but perhaps the only feature-length Josephine Baker film where her infectious joy and energy actually does what it's meant to and infects everyone else. The rather odd decision to hold off all the musical numbers until the last act makes the first hour or so a bit stodgy, but it means the ending is an absolute high.
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The film follows the life story of a young black woman from her childhood in a circus to adult success in the musical theater.
Zouzou, a black girl, and Jean, a white boy, are displayed as twins in the side show of a circus. As adults Zouzou (Josephine Baker) and Jean (Jean Gabin) still regard themselves as sister and brother. Jean is a seaman, and Zouzou works in a laundry. Zouzou loves to sing and dance for her friends at the laundry but has no thought of a theatrical career. After Jean is arrested for murder, Zouzou needs money for his defense. At a theater, she displays her singing and dancing talents to the impresario who immediately hires her. Her…
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Josephine Baker's star quality shines through, even if the film around her doesn't deserve her.
Such a shame she never got the chance to work with material that is actually great.
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Josephine Baker. like so many others, left the USA and went to Paris in the 1920s, where there was virtually no racial discrimination, something she was subjected to in her early years in the US. She was completely accepted in Paris and became a big star, famous for her "banana dance".
This film serves as a perfect vehicle for her, as she shows off her wonderful abilities at singing and dancing. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that her acting was very good as well, as this is the first time I have seen her in a film. But the best thing was that there wasn't a single mention of her being black, she was just accepted by everyone…
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A film to exploit the popularity of the 'creole' cabaret artist Josephine Baker. And she is the light driving this. Sadly there is not much else making it interesting then to see the famous lady do a rare movie project. Jean Gabin is more or less anonymous and the plot.... not sure that was. Baker is a cleaner and ends up in a show singing about Haiti.... and some random situations happens without much context.