Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 05/01/20

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Friday, May 1, 2020

Siren of the Tropics (Mario Nalpas, Henri Étiévant, 1927)

Josephine Baker and Pierre Batcheff in Siren of the Tropics

Cast: Josephine Baker, Pierre Batcheff, Georges Melchior, Régina Dalthy, Regina Thomas, Kiranine, Adolphe Candé. Screenplay: Maurice Dekobra. Cinematography: Paul Cotteret, Albert Duverger, Maurice Hennebains. Production design: Eugène Carré, Pierre Schild.

Siren of the Tropics is a silly showcase for the gangly impishness of Josephine Baker. The plot is the usual colonialist nonsense: The wealthy Count Sévéro (Georges Melchior) lusts after his goddaughter, Denise (Regina Thomas), so he sends the man she wants to marry, André Berval (Pierre Batcheff), off to prospect for minerals in the property he owns in the West Indies, secretly writing a note to the brutish Alvarez (Kiranine), who manages the property, that André should never return to France. But André meets up with the native Papitou (Baker), who falls in love with him, helps save his life, and then, when André returns to France, stows away on a boat to Paris. There she becomes a hit music hall star and reconnects with André, but gives him up so he can marry Denise. The whole thing is an excuse for some dancing -- but no singing, since it's a silent movie -- and a lot of clowning by Baker, who also has a couple of topless scenes. It was Baker's first feature as a star and much of it was thought to be lost for a while. The print shown on TCM has some choppy moments where frames seem to be missing, as well as some eye-straining tinted scenes, but it's still essential for its glimpse of an immortal. It also has an interesting credit: Luis Buñuel is listed as an assistant director.