Review of La Marseillaise (1938) by Jason K — 24 Jan 2008

I didn't see La Marseillaise at all, but Flixster sadly has no entry for Renoir's Charleston Parade (1927) which has officially replaced Malle's Le Feu follet as being my favorite film.

The year is 2028. After "the war," an African explorer (portrayed in black face) drives his oval flying machine over to Paris, where a lovely woman (who's only companion is a monkey) ties him up and teaches him the Charleston on demolished streets. He offers to let her eat him for the lesson, but she says that'd make her sick. Inside the pillar on which the explorer landed, the woman draws a telephone which soon becomes real. She calls an angel, who wishes to speak to the explorer. The explorer tells the angel (among other angels) that he's going to learn the Charleston. He does. Then he and the woman return to Africa together while the monkey cries.

This is my kinda cinema.