Princesse Tam-Tam

....but the parts she was offered were really poor."Princesse Tam-Tam" directed by third-rate artist Edmond Greville is no exception.On the plus side,there is a screenplay and even an unexpected twist at the end.It reminds me of "Pygmalion" sometimes as one user has already pointed out.

But the main reason is to show Baker in the music hall where she belongs.There's a long scene there and it may bore people who do not like this kind of show.

There's no real racism,but the natives from Africa are looked upon as "big children" by the white man .Who could blame the script writers? In Hergé's comic strip "Tintin au Congo" ,at the beginning of the thirties ,it was all the same.

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.

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.

The key to fully enjoying this film is to forget for a few minutes that it's a vehicle for Josephine Baker, and view it as a French version of a screwball comedy. Apart from the grafted-on Pygmalion theme, the script is really about war between husband and wife.

From that perspective it's really as good as than many similar films produced by Hollywood during the same era. The viewer can then have fun comparing the Gallic take on the theme with the American and English approaches.

The production dance number is clearly an imitation of Busby Berkeley, and nowhere near as lavish. But enjoyable enough in its own rights. Again, the fun is in comparing the French choreographer's way of doing things with Berkeley. And ... think about it for a minute ... did French chorus lines at that (or any) time really have tap dancing?

Then go back to thinking about Josephine Baker. It's a shame she didn't get to dance more, but the dance to Sous Le Ciel and the Samba in the final number were quite good.

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.