Multimedia Collection

Princess Tam Tam

VHS
80 minutes
1935
PN1997 .P751 1989

Buoyed by the success of Zou Zou a year earlier, the same team created in Princess Tam Tam a Pygmalion-like comedy allowing audiences to vicariously share in Baker's rise from shepherd girl to pretend-princess.

Alwina (Josephine Baker) is discovered by a French aristocrat (Albert Prejean) while he is in Tunisia seeking inspiration for a new novel. He falls deeply in love with this innocent gamin and constructs a plot to polish her charms and bring her to Paris where he thinks he can present her to society as an Indian princess.

In a thinly veiled parallel to Baker's own experience, Alwina becomes the toast of Paris, becoming a faovorite subject for the city's great artists and a guest at the most important social events.The highlight of Princess Tam Tam comes with Alwina's presentation at a fancy nightclub where she is tricked into drinking too much by her mentor's jealous wife and falls prey to the compelling tom-tom beat of the club orchestra, whereupon she jumps to the stage, strips off her evening gown and dances as only Josephine Baker could.

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