Marc Allégret’s Zou Zou and Edmond T. Gréville’s Princess Tam Tam are among the most bittersweet musical comedies ever made. In both films, the character played by Josephine Baker loves a man who doesn’t love her back, and she’s unsuccessful in convincing him otherwise. Of course, there’s an easy explanation for this: As Baker was Black, the miscegenation taboo prevented these characters from consummating their love. And it’s this simple fact that allows these films to carry an admixture of joy and sadness to this day.
Zou Zou, from 1934, co-stars Jean Gabin as Jean, who becomes the love interest of Zou Zou (Baker), which is a bit odd given that the characters grew up as siblings. Zou Zou’s perceived exoticism is put to use in the Cirque Romarin traveling circus by its owner, Papa Melé (Pierre Larquey), who adopted her and Jean after their fathers—both performers in the circus—died.
While this may sound exploitative on paper, the film treats it more as an affectionate gesture of acceptance on behalf of a white French family. Jean is a rambunctious sailor (“He loved the sea so much, he could have swallowed it down to the last drop,” says Papa Melé), and Zou Zou is pursuing a career in show business, only she’s a modest laundress for now.
Several sequences highlight Baker’s talents as a singer, dancer, and clown—and she makes funny faces with the best of them. In particular, though, the musical sequences are meant to showcase Baker’s physique, her slender frame on display in tight fitting dresses. The plotting around the musical elements is mostly perfunctory, ranging from love triangles to a strange final third in which Jean is accused of murder and Zou Zou embarks on proving his innocence. All of this distracts from the one obvious attraction: Baker’s star persona.
By comparison, 1935’s Princess Tam Tam is an unseemly affair that stars Baker as a Tunisian vagabond, Alwina, who steals food and goods to get by. The film begins with Max (Albert Préjean), a frustrated author from France, leaving for Tunisia (“A real savage land. Yes, Africa!”) with his servant (Georges Peclet) and ghost writer (Robert Arnoux), both in pursuit of inspiration and to get away from his cheating wife (Germaine Aussey). It’s there that Max meets Alwina, decides to use her as the basis for his next novel, and in the process “make fools of pretentious snobs” by transforming her into a Pygmalion-like woman of high society.
The film, though, less satirizes exoticism than it merely recognizes Baker as an alluring woman who can deceive an unsuspecting bourgeois class. And, indeed, she’s convincing in her deception, but the filmmakers are content to leave it at that. Rather than dynamizing the narrative through drawing-room intrigue, Princess Tam Tam’s last third settles for celebrating Alwina, who wants to marry an unwilling Max, as a star of the Parisian bohemian scene, and so Baker is once again being used to showcase her obvious talents as a performer.
Neither of these underseen musicals are particularly compelling as a whole given their relative stylistic and thematic simplicity. Still, Zou Zou and Princess Tam Tam are both important historical records of Black representation, not least of which for the way that they highlight the inherently racist assumptions in musical comedies that happy endings are predetermined.
Zou Zou and Princess Tam Tam are now available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber.
Since 2001, we've brought you uncompromising, candid takes on the world of film, music, television, video games, theater, and more. Independently owned and operated publications like Slant have been hit hard in recent years, but we’re committed to keeping our content free and accessible—meaning no paywalls or fees.
If you like what we do, please consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a donation.
