Zaza

ZaZa is a forgotten movie from the silver screen, and I don't know why. Perhaps it's the silly title. If it was named "Never Her Own" or "Meant to Be Loved" or something equally catchy and memorable, it might have stood a greater chance. Claudette Colbert plays the title character, a performer with a French theater. She may be beautiful and in a disreputable profession, but she still wants to be treated with respect. She wants to find a decent man and fall in love and get married. When she meets Herbert Marshall, all her dreams start to come true.

If you're a fan of Claudette, don't miss this drama. She's wonderful in it, nearly winning a Rag Award for her powerful performance. Helen Westley is also surprisingly good, playing against type as a drunken rag woman - also Claudette's mother. Check this one out on a rainy evening and bring out your Kleenex boxes. You'll get to see a beautiful woman in beautiful clothes - and the story is interesting, too!

I ordered this from a rather dumpy company that sells old films they have transferred to DVD. I wanted it because I love Colbert. This is a giant film. I have never seen a Hollywood movie with such an authentic French feel. Colbert's role is fascinating. There is a lot of Camille, Back Street and even Gypsy in the story. Colbert's character goes through a lot of changes and Claudette was so totally in charge; this is arguably her finest hour. Marshall was perfect as a man who could not be more different from Colbert. The secondary cast is magnificent, in particular, Bert Lahr in a serious role. Why this one never became a real classic is hard to understand. The attention to detail and the classy way Cukor unfolds the story makes it fly by. Turner Classic Movies needs to pick it up. This is the sort of thing I could see becoming steady viewing for those who love old movies. I expect to see it a half dozen times more before sharing it with friends. And until a couple weeks ago, I had never heard of it.

After four more viewings I had to amend my rating from 9 to 10. This movie is about as good as it gets.

Director Cukor had a background in theater, and this is one of his films that allude to it (others include A Double Life, A Star is Born, Les Girls, and Heller in Pink Tights). He nicely evokes the camaraderie of a small group of travelling vaudevillians in 1890's France, and much of the action takes place backstage. Bert Lahr makes one of his few film appearances as Zaza's performing partner and conveys a gentle melancholy--possibly because his character is meant to be seen as gay and closeted or because he is hopelessly in love with Zaza. It's a little ambiguous, due perhaps to the Production Code. There's a wonderful and quite sensuous scene in which he casually plays piano and starts to sing a song that could be used by Zaza in the act and that she then starts to sing, first as she lounges on a bed in the next room. She is almost Dietrich-like, which is apt, as the song is by Frederick Hollander, who wrote so many of that diva's classics, including "Falling in Love Again."

It's a little hard to fathom Zaza's devotion to the character played by Herbert Marshall, and the film definitely shows its origins as a play, but it's worth taking a look at.