Plot: The queen of the gypsies is dead ,long live the new queen, Cartacalha ; She must marry a man of her tribe,but she's in love with Le Galejon ,a horse breeder in a mas (farm) of Camargue; a producer tells her that as a dancer ,a great career lies in store in Paris for her .She becomes the toast of the city but loses her virtue, thus her title.
The movie was made in 1941,before the Occupation ;considering the gypsies' fate was similar to that of the Jews ,such a film was unthinkable afterwards. Out of less than one million of gypsies living in Europa ,220,000 were exterminated by the Nazis and their allies.
The best part is the first :the funeral, the procession along the sea in Les Saintes Maries De La Mer ; the scene in the café where they refuse stupid received ideas on people they don't know that much : "they are cannibalistic ,aren't they? And the awful way they treat some babies?"Viviane Romance's beauty and sensuality add spice to her gypsy dances .
But the second part in Paris is less satisfying ;on stage it seems that the queen has lost her identity :her dances are closer to Spanish flamenco or to French folies bergères,and her song falls in the novelty genre;and the trick of the quicksand ,almost every movie set in Camargue features it .Only Gaby Andreu , as Pirbichi , the perfidious mom who wants her own daughter to replace the elected queen, plays her game well.
