Sur un air de Charleston

Shot in three days on a practically zero budget, using film stock left over from Nana, Jean Renoir made this strange curio just for fun. He never edited it. It was never released. He later gave the footage to the Cinémathèque Française, who pieced the film together.

The story: it's the year 2028. An explorer from Central Africa (Johnny Huggins, a jazz dancer of the 1920s, who appears here in minstrel makeup; he actually was black) arrives in a post-apocalyptic Paris in a flying sphere. He encounters a scantily-clad wild girl and her monkey friend. The girl dances the Charleston to try to seduce him. He thinks she's threatening him and he runs away. She chases after him, dancing ever more aggressively and seductively. The explorer begins to watch, hesitantly, but curiously. The girl draws a telephone on the wall, which turns into a real telephone, and she calls some kind of disembodied human head with wings. Some other winged disembodied heads appear. The girl hands the phone to the explorer, and one of the heads speaks to him--apparently letting him know that the girl's OK. Then the explorer and the girl dance the Charleston together. The girl leaves with the explorer in his flying sphere, her tearful monkey friend waving goodbye.

Charleston Parade (1927)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Extremely bizarre short film from Jean Renoir is somewhat sci-fi and somewhat musical. A man in blackface takes off in a spaceship and lands in an unknown country. In this country he meets a white woman (Catherine Hessling; the director's wife) who does a tribal dance, which the blackface man believes is from his native people. I'm really not sure what the hell this film is suppose to be about but I can only guess it has something to do with reverse racism. There are several racial comments made by the white girl and her "not liking black meat" and I guess her being the "native" doing a tribal dance was the reverse thing from the black man doing it, which is something we've seen in countless films from this period. The DVD doesn't feature any music score so it was somewhat hard to know the nature the director was going for. An interesting short to say the least.

Licking his wounds after the catastrophic failure of his 1926 version of 'Nana', starring his then-wife (1920-30) Catherine Hessling, Jean Renoir cheered himself up by making the nearest he ever came to science fiction with this exuberant romp set in the year 2028 displaying the impressively athletic dancing ability and lack of inhibition of the baby-faced Ms Hessling.

Arriving in the shattered remnants of Paris in a spherical spaceship that resembles 'Rover' from 'The Prisoner', a smartly dressed visitor from the African continent - where civilisation now resides since Europe blew itself to smithereens - is confronted by a scantily clad savage (her skimpy outfit enhanced by wrist-length gloves) played by Ms Hessling; and joins her in an energetic dancing duel facilitated by some pretty far-out trick photography. (Renoir anticipates Kubrick by forty years by going into negative to depict his flight.) The 'minstrel' makeup worn by Johnny Hudgins in the lead can't be blamed on Renoir since it was adopted by Hudgins himself in his stage act of the time.

If this had ever been intended for public exhibition it would have been a supreme example of pre-code filmmaking. Great fun.

As a closet completist I felt I must see this one, even though what I knew about it wasn't prepossessing. And the result: a piece of exuberant tosh by Renoir - the classics were definitely a long way off.

In 2028 black-faced Negro flies in to Terra Incognito - post War France - in a sphere and is ensnared by an indefatigable dancing scantily clad white aborigine woman. Although he too has a sense of rhythm he's especially impressed by her either dancing first in slow- and then fast-mo. Slinky and shameless dance moves, a telephone drawn on the wall and 5 bodiless grinning angels are highlights - give me Tex Avery anyday! Hessling was certainly good to look at (personally speaking of course) but even though it's so short it still drags without a coherent plot.

But! This wasn't meant to be heavy, and as knockabout sci-fi it was an interesting 19 minutes - I might even watch it again sometime.

"Sur Un Air De Charleston" is a good example of the evil influences that came from beyond the Atlantic sea… strange customs, garments, gastronomy or dances; modernises that almost put an end the conservatives European habits.

A reputable French director (a frenchified dichotomy… ) instead of listening day and night to "La Marseilleise", changed such martial and delicate music rhythm to Jazz, that out-of-tune Amerikan music that was fashionable during the mad 20's in Europe (with the exception of the aristocratic circles that preferred dancing in circles in to dizzy waltzes). So, due to Renoir's liking of Jazz and with some left over stock footage of his excellent and previous film "Nana" (1926), he decided to have a good time making this surreal, bizarre but funny musical silent film (a frenchified incongruity).

In 2028, a mysterious African explorer puts his aircraft on Terra incognita. He meets a charming young native that is accompanied by a chimpanzee, who is going to introduce him to a dance of the wild natives (not the chimpanzee)…, that is to say, the Charleston.

That's the bizarre story of the film, a perfect excuse to put and show the French (Dame Catherine Hessling, natürlich! ) dancing the Charleston wildly… forward, backward in fast and stop motion. Meanwhile the astonished African explorer (Herr Johnny Huggings, a black actor characterized as a negro!) learns to dance quickly and hastily.

Obviously "Sur Un Air De Charleston" is a harmless, a private divertimento, a bizarre but charming short film made to show Renoir's wife's dancing talent. It is an oeuvre that includes the atmosphere that Herr Renoir was so fond of in some of his early films besides … all that Jazz.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must dance St. Vitus's dance.