Product Description

St. Louis-born and Harlem-raised Paris music hall superstar Josephine Baker (Zou Zou, Princess Tam Tam), the highest paid entertainer of her day, is only one of the legends in this vintage 1927 collection of sexy and tres risque Le Jazz Hot performances from the notorious nightclubs of Montmarte. Serge Bromberg and Lobster Films spent ten years combing film archives worldwide, with the biggest assist coming from a print located at the Danish Film Institute, to reassemble La Revue Des Revues (whose lavish production numbers are color tinted using an elaborate stencil process) into a cinematic time machine recreating Jazz Age France in all it's extravagance and sensuality. Gabrielle (Helene Hallier), an ambitious but innocent would-be young chorine, trumps a music hall publicity stunt to become the new Parisian nightclub Cinderella. But this lighter-than-champagne-bubbles story is only a pretext for La Revue Des Revues's white-hot, non-stop procession of outrageously and scantily attired exotic dancers, showgirls, and acrobats including the Tiller's Follies Girls, Ruth Zackey and the Hoffmann Girls, and danseuse russe Lila Nikolska. But it's Josephine Baker, "the high priestess of primitivism" (J. Hoverman - Village Voice), who triumphs in two show stopping numbers in which "her clownish backfield-in-motion Charleston shimmy is unlike anything else in the movie and perhaps unlike anything anyone ever did".

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While it may not qualify as a masterpiece of silent cinema, La Revue des Revues offers a priceless time-capsule smorgasbord of Parisian nightlife circa 1927. The "Jazz Age" was in full swing (so to speak), and this glorious showcase of extravagant entertainment is highlighted by two performances by Josephine Baker, at that time the highest-paid entertainer in Europe. With her "backfield in motion" and her slinky physique working overtime, Baker is the most prominent performer in a veritable cavalcade of lavish dance and spectacle, played out on the grand stages of such Montmarte hot-spots as the Palace Theater, Folies-Bergère, and the legendary Moulin Rouge. The parade of performance revolves around the charming (if lightweight) story of Gabrielle (Helene Hallier), a down-and-out chorus girl who dreams of dance-hall stardom by entering a contest to find the new Cinderella of Parisian nightclubs. The plot is strictly disposable, but for anyone interested in artifacts of the Jazz Age, La Revue des Revues is a breathtaking feast of costumes, dance numbers, and dazzling stage designs, presented in over a dozen routines as lavish as they are (in retrospect) garishly amusing. Baker is certainly the headliner here, but other performers make up a roster of Parisian stars of 1927, including Russian dancer Lila Nikolska, the Tiller's Follies girls, and the illustrious Madame Komakova. There's a bit of peek-a-boo nudity, but otherwise this is good, clean fun. Special credit to film restoration experts Eric Lange, Serge Bromberg, and Lobster Films for combing through global film archives to create this beautifully tinted restoration, which owes its existence to a well-preserved print found at the Danish Film Institute. And while silent-film purists may prefer an authentic, vintage score, the all-new original music (by the French contemporary jazz ensemble Taranta-Babu!) certainly gives this film an interesting aesthetic spin. The rest of La Revue des Revues is purely rooted in its own era, and that makes it a fitting DVD companion to The Josephine Baker Collection. --Jeff Shannon