Zou Zou

There's no question that Josephine Baker was a pop culture phenomenon of the jazz age: one of the reigning superstars of Broadway and the Folies Bergère, the Haitian-American singer/dancer best known for her exotic "banana dance" was also one of Europe's most popular entertainers, and was instrumental in breaking down barriers of race and social mores (Madonna owes more than a little to Baker's legacy). Three of Baker's most important films have been preserved on DVD by Kino: the 1927 silent Siren of the Tropics, 1935's Princess Tam Tam, and the enormously popular Zou Zou (1934), arguably Baker's finest showcase (and made even more enjoyable by the presence of Jean Gabin, the great French actor then at the beginning of his stellar career). In the title role, Baker plays a Creole laundress who gets her big break in showbiz when a snooty diva (Yvette Lebon) ditches her sugar-daddy producer and bails out on the opening night of her latest star revue. Zou Zou, an orphan of the circus (like Gabin's character, Jean) and far more talented, is recruited as a last-minute replacement, and her musical prowess (most evident in the melancholy ballad "Haiti," which she performs as a feathered songbird swinging in a gilded cage) turns her into an overnight sensation. Bearing some resemblance to American musicals such as 42nd Street and Footlight Parade, this is a creaky but still-entertaining film, if only because Baker's undeniable vitality makes it shine. Bonus featurettes include interviews with Lynn Whitfield (who played Baker in the 1991 HBO biopic The Josephine Baker Story) and Baker's adopted son Jean-Claude, a video tour of New York's Chez Josephine nightclub, and sheet music for selected songs from the film. Recommended. (J. Shannon)