Sur un air de Charleston

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.

This is an odd one and no mistake. In 2028, a black man (in black face and minstrel costume) pilots an orb to a savage land that once was Paris. There, he finds a native girl – a scantily-clad Catherine Hessling (Mrs Renoir) – who ties him to a post before dancing the Charleston. That's about all the story there is really. At one point, the girl draws a telephone which becomes real and uses it to a phone a group of bodiless angels (her hubby amongst them).

Although the plot-free film quickly becomes rather tiresome because of its protracted dance sequences, it looks quite fascinating. Renoir repeatedly slows the motion while Hessling dances to turn what is essentially a frenetic jig into something altogether more sensuous, and the picture of a black-faced, top-hatted man dancing on a sunny, ruined street is one of those peculiar images that will forever be etched in my mind (even though I'll probably be asking if anyone knows which film it's from on the 'I Need to Know' board in a couple of years).

The version I watched was completely silent, with no musical score at all. Some kind of music would have helped things along a bit, but I guess it would have been difficult to accompany all those slow-motion sequences effectively. Definitely worth a look for its curiosity value, but not really a film of much substance.

A man in blackface lands in a spaceship and meets a girl who lives in some sort of shack with a monkey. He hooks her up with a telephone, and she teaches him how to Charleston. Then they fly off in the spaceship, leaving the monkey behind. Cringe-inducing blackface aside, this short film makes no sense. I think that's the plot, but I'm not sure by a long shot. You can't tell that this is Renoir at work, despite his characteristic humanism. Good use of slow-motion, though. Can be found on the NY Film Annex's series of Experimental Film videos, No. 18, I believe.

I just found this as an extra on a DVD of 'Grand Illusion.' A surreal, silent, sci-fi short from 1927, it is the tale of a 21st-century African airman who journeys to post-apocalyptic Paris and discovers the sacred dance of the ancients, the Charleston. Hilarious, delightful, sexy, and utterly, utterly, soul-refreshingly bonkers, the maddest thing I have seen in ages.

Now I am told my comment is not long enough, which is absurd. There is nothing more to add, except watch out for the Angel-heads. Also, lazy advertising men who are tempted to rip off the angel-heads for some moronic commercial should be informed that someone already did so years ago. I believe that is my ten lines now.

"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.