La revue des revues (1927) DVD

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 Montmartre. Serge Bromberg and Lobster Films spent ten years combing film archives world-wide, 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 its 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. Hoberman, 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."

France 1927 Color Tinted 103 min.
Original aspect ratio (1.33:1)
Directed by Joe Francys
Written by Joe Francys and Clement Vautel
Cinematography by Jimmy Berliet
and Maurice Guillemin Original Music by Taranta-Babu
Produced by Alex Nalpas
With Josephine Baker, Helene Hallier, Andre Luguet, Pepa Bonafe, Gretchikine, Madame Komakova, Ludovic, Lila Nikolska, Skibinne, Tiller's Follies Girls, Ruth Zackey and the Hoffmann Girls
Restoration by Eric Lange
Production by Serge Bromberg, Lobster Films
Special thanks to the Danish Film Institute, Gaumont-Pathé Archives and Lenny Borger