Charleston Parade

Charleston Parade (Sur un air de Charleston) is a short 1927 futuristic sensual dance fantasy film directed by Jean Renoir, starring Renoir's wife Catherine Hessling and the African American mime artist Johnny Hudgins.^[1][2] Hudgins performs in blackface.

Charleston Parade
French	Sur un air de Charleston
Directed by	Jean Renoir
Release date	1927 (1927)
Running time	21 minutes
Country	France
Language	Silent

Originally titled Sur un air de Charleston, the film was released as Charleston Parade in English-speaking countries. Renoir would later remark that he directed this avant-garde film because he had "just discovered American jazz." He used some of the leftover footage from his previous film Nana.^[1][3] The film was shot in a three days in the autumn of 1926, but remained unfinished and is rarely shown. The film reverses racial stereotypes and is set in 2028.^[4][5] Censorship boards in some areas of the US and Europe protested against Catherine Hessling's near-nude dance performance.^[1] According to Renoir, the film was favourably reviewed by the press, "but this did nothing to open the doors of the popular cinemas."^[3]

A restored version of the film was shown at the Grand Lyon Film Festival in 2018.^[6]

Plot

2028. Europe has been destroyed by a devastating war. An African scientist decides to explore in a flying bubble. Arriving over what remains of Paris, he sets his craft down on the roof of a Morris advertising column, which serves as shelter for a beautiful white aboriginal wild woman, whose only companion is a monkey. When the wild woman discovers that the foreign explorer has arrived, she ties him to the column and performs a sensual ritual dance for him. The prisoner realises that this is a Charleston, the original dance of his people, traces of which have been lost for ages. The white dancer frees the explorer and teaches him to dance. Happily—but to the great despair of the monkey—they both climb into the flying bubble and take off for Africa. And a cardboard box warns us that this is how the dance of the white aborigines entered Africa.^{[n. 1]}

• Stills from Charleston Parade with Catherine Hessling and Johnny Hudgins
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Cast

• Catherine Hessling as Parisian Savage^[7]
• Johnny Hudgins as African Explorer
• Pierre Braunberger as Angel
• André Cerf as Angel
• Pierre Lestringuez as Angel
• Jean Renoir as Angel

Notes

1. In his memoirs, My life and my films, Renoir writes that the explorer comes from another planet, while in the film it is clear that the explorer comes from civilised Africa and leaves for the terra incognita known as France, an empty space on the world map (like large parts of Africa before colonisation by European countries). He also miswrites Hudgin's name as Higgins.^[3]

References

1. "Charleston Parade". Unifrance. Retrieved 15 January 2025.
2. "Sur un air de Charleston (1927)". BFI. Archived from the original on November 17, 2017.
3. Renoir, Jean (1991) [1974]. My life and my films. New York, N.Y.: Da Capo Press. p. 91-92. ISBN 0-306-80457-3. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
4. Davis, Colin (2021). "In Pursuit of the Untamed Other: Sur un air de Charleston and Le Bled". In Davis, Colin (ed.). Silent Renoir. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 103–122. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-63027-0_7. ISBN 978-3-030-63026-3. S2CID 234115971. Retrieved 15 January 2025.
5. Ghermani, Wafa. "Sur un air de Charleston - Autour du film". Catalogue des restaurations et tirages (in French). La Cinémathèque française. Retrieved 15 January 2025.
6. "Sur un air de charleston". Festival Lumière 2018 (in French). Lyon. 13–18 October 2018. Retrieved 15 January 2025.
7. Charleston Parade (1927) | MUBI. Retrieved 2024-11-27 – via mubi.com.

Further reading

• Kern, Anne M. (2013). "Sur un air de Charleston, Nana, La Petite Marchande d'allumettes, Tire au flanc: Renoir and the Ethics of Play". In Phillips, Alastair; Vincendeau, Ginette (eds.). A Companion to Jean Renoir. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. pp. 107–120. doi:10.1002/9781118325315.ch6. ISBN 9781444338539.

External links

• Sur un air de Charleston at IMDb
• Charleston Parade at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Renoir Charleston 1927, short clip from the silent footage of Charleston Parade backed with Tiny Parham's 1929 recording of "Washboard Wiggles" and Jelly Roll Morton's 1926 recording of "Steamboat Stomp".
• Yousou N'Dour - The Joker (2002), the clip contains scenes from "Sur un air de Charleston".