Zaza (1939)

Director:

George Cukor

Writers:

Zoe Akins (writer)
Pierre Berton (play)

Release Date:

14 January 1939 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A sexy singer in a French music hall falls in love with a handsome, but married, aristocrat. |

Plot Keywords:

Based On Play

Cast

Claudette Colbert	...	Zaza
Herbert Marshall	...	Dufresne
Bert Lahr	...	Cascart
Helen Westley	...	Anais
Constance Collier	...	Nathalie
Genevieve Tobin	...	Florianne
Walter Catlett	...	Marlardot
Ann E. Todd	...	Toto
Rex O'Malley	...	Bussy
Ernest Cossart	...	Marchand
Rex Evans	...	Michelin
Robert Fischer	...	Pierre (as Robert C. Fischer)
Janet Waldo	...	Simone
Dorothy Tree	...	Madame Dufresne
Duncan Renaldo	...	Animal trainer

Runtime:

83 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-16

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since. However, because of legal complications, this particular title was not included in the original television package and was not televised until several years afterward.

Movie Connections:

Version of Zazà (1944)

Cukor's theater world

Director Cukor had a background in theater, and this is one of his films that allude to it (others include A Double Life, A Star is Born, Les Girls, and Heller in Pink Tights). He nicely evokes the camaraderie of a small group of travelling vaudevillians in 1890's France, and much of the action takes place backstage. Bert Lahr makes one of his few film appearances as Zaza's performing partner and conveys a gentle melancholy--possibly because his character is meant to be seen as gay and closeted or because he is hopelessly in love with Zaza. It's a little ambiguous, due perhaps to the Production Code. There's a wonderful and quite sensuous scene in which he casually plays piano and starts to sing a song that could be used by Zaza in the act and that she then starts to sing, first as she lounges on a bed in the next room. She is almost Dietrich-like, which is apt, as the song is by Frederick Hollander, who wrote so many of that diva's classics, including "Falling in Love Again."

It's a little hard to fathom Zaza's devotion to the character played by Herbert Marshall, and the film definitely shows its origins as a play, but it's worth taking a look at.