La principessa Tam Tam

Josephine Baker was one of the most remarkable women of the 20th century. Talented and beautiful, she moved away from the racially segregated US to find her fortune in Paris, where she became the highest paid entertainer in Europe for many years. She mostly worked in the nightclub scene, singing and dancing, but she did make a few films. If all those films were as uninspired as Princess Tam Tam (1935), it's easy to see why she got bored with cinema so quickly.

Baker is the only entertaining aspect of the film. She's charming and funny, and steals every frame she appears in. Her co-stars leave little impression, partly due to having to share the screen with Baker and partly due to their characters being dull, or worse, that deadly combination of unlikable and annoying. The story is a pale retread of Pygmalion and even though the movie doesn't even last an hour and a half, it seems to go on forever. There's even a Busby Berkely style dance number at the end which may be the most obvious use of narrative padding I've ever seen.

A poor script combined with choppy camera-work makes this mostly uninspired viewing. However, Baker's performance makes it worth a single watch, and it makes you wish the producers and writers had given her better material to work with.

Princess Tam Tam is without the trappings of racism, in the way we think of racism in the United States, but there are more subtle (to the American viewer) assertions about ethnic identity during the time. Pay attention to Alwina's (Baker) placement within shots, how she is addressed by the other characters, the settings around her that all depict her as a "savage" African, and ask yourself if Alwina has any shred of agency throughout the film. I don't want to ruin anything but at the end pay very careful attention, the dichotomy between "Eastern" and "Western" culture is to say the least offensive, such diction is thankfully disavowed these days. The French have a checkered past as an imperial force throughout the areas depicted (see Chris Marker's Les Statues Meurent Aussi- 1953), and pay attention to the places the European travelers visit while they are in Africa, and what does that reflect about their attitudes towards the "other". I give this film a 7 because I am a sucker for Baker, much of what she did in her professional career, like Princes Tam Tam, that is regressive is certainly overshadowed by her efforts towards integration, her work as a freaking spy (I am gushing, sorry.) However the film for me is captivating because of her performance, besides that it is a telling relic of bygone mentalities.

I see that the 11 previous reviews of this movie here vary considerably, from positive to negative. That reflects this movie, frankly, which has good things and bad.

Baker plays a young African woman living in (white) North Africa. She is "civilized" by a French novelist, somewhat the way Henry Higgens trains Eliza Doolittle, but here in order to get back at his wife in France, whom he suspects of cheating on him, in other words for strictly selfish reasons. In the end, when he wins back his wife - in a completely unconvincing scene - he forgets all about Baker.

The viewer can't forget Baker, though, because she is really the center of the movie. She plays a naive but not stupid young woman who is perfectly happy living day to day in the simple fashion of those with few material goods. She accepts what is given her, but she prefers to dance barefoot in her own rather wild - but not particularly erotic - manner, rather than to worry about the steps of the latest French dance style.

So the movie is really about the clash of two civilizations. It ends with Baker, back in Africa, happily wedded to a (white) Arab, living a simple life again. Nothing in the movie makes that look foolish or ignorant. Neither does the movie try to make that lifestyle look superior to the sophisticated lives of well-to-do Parisians of the 1930s. They are just two very different, and basically incompatible, cultures. And there the movie leaves it.

Baker gets to sing a few pleasant but not really memorable songs. Her dancing is more frenetic than graceful. Some French folk are depicted as admiring it, others as ridiculing it. The movie really doesn't take sides. Since we don't have much movie footage of Baker performing from the 1920s and 30s, it's hard to say how representative, if at all, this is of the sort of thing she was doing in Paris theaters at the time.

Not a bad movie, and not really a racist one - though it certainly has racist characters in it.

The story in this feature is an interesting re-working of the familiar 'Pygmalion' story, making some fairly imaginative changes in the setting and details to add some new themes to the story. It is also a decent vehicle for the vivacious and multi-talented Josephine Baker. Although the material does not give her a chance to display her full range of talents (which would probably take a stage show, rather than a movie), it does provide her with some pretty good musical numbers, and it gives her a role that is a good fit.

Albert Préjean and Robert Arnoux make a good team, as the writer and his collaborator who travel to Africa so that Préjean's character can benefit from a change of atmosphere. As the Bedouin Alwina, whom the two Frenchmen meet, Baker's spirited energy works very well. As the story progresses, the kinds of slights and frustrations that her character faces inevitably remind you of the undeserved problems that Baker herself had to contend with in her own life, giving it an interesting extra dimension.

Préjean and Arnoux balance things well with their light, bantering approach. Préjean, in particular, does a good job with his character, showing that there is some sensitivity underneath his somewhat lazy, self-absorbed exterior.

The story moves at a good pace, leading up to the climax at the Maharajah's lavish party, which includes a couple of creative touches. The concluding series of plot turns resolves things in a light fashion, while also suggesting a couple of ideas which, as long as you are careful not to misunderstand them, are worth thinking about. The movie avoids taking itself too seriously, and that helps it work rather well.

A French novelist, disgusted by his wife's society friends, goes to North Africa for a respite. There he encounters a vivacious & talented Bedouin girl, living in poverty. To spite his wife, who is romancing a Maharajah, he decides to train & educate the girl, and present her to Parisian society as the PRINCESSE TAM TAM...

The marvelous Josephine Baker is perfectly cast in the title role in this very enjoyable French film. With her enormous eyes & infectious smile, she makes contact with the viewer's heartstrings immediately. Her over-sized personality & obvious joy of performing make her a pure pleasure to watch. Baker makes us care about what's happening to poor Alwina during her transformation & introduction to European mores.

Albert Préjean does very well as the Pygmalion to Baker's Galatea; also effective are Georges Peclet as a half-caste servant, and Jean Galland as the mysterious Maharajah.

The film is very handsome & well made, looking a little reminiscent of Busby Berkeley movies being produced at the same time in America - although unlike American films of this period, PRINCESSE TAM TAM hasn't any racism. It should be pointed out that there was no Hays Office or Production Code in France. Some of the dialogue & action is rather provocative, but it must be admitted that Baker singing & dancing to 'Under The African Sky,' as well as her culminating performance in the Parisian nightclub, are two of the cinema's more memorable moments.

Actual location filming in Tunisia greatly enhances the film.

Josephine Baker was born in St. Louis in 1906, into a very poor family. Her talent & driving ambition, however, soon pushed her into moving East and she was briefly a cast member of the Ziegfeld Follies. Realizing that America in the mid-1920's held great limitations for a gifted Black woman, she managed to get herself to Paris, where she eventually joined the Foliés-Bergeres & Le Negre Revue. The French adored her and she became a huge celebrity. A short return to America in 1935 showed Baker that things had not changed for African-Americans. She returned to France, became a French citizen & worked for the Resistance during the early days of the War. Baker relocated to Morocco for the duration and entertained Allied troops stationed there.

After the War, Baker's fortunes began to slide and she faced many financial & personal difficulties. For a while, she was even banned from returning to the United States. Finally, Baker accepted an offer from Princess Grace of Monaco to reside in the Principality. Josephine Baker was on the verge of a comeback when she died of a stroke in 1975, at the age of 68.

Having appeared in only two decent films - ZOUZOU & PRINCESSE TAM TAM - Baker is in danger of becoming obscure. But she deserves her place alongside Chevalier, Dietrich & Robeson, as one of her generation's truly legendary performers.