tieman64 "Charleston Parade" is a 1926 silent, short film by director Jean Renoir. Set in the year 2028, the film sees a pilot in blackface and minstrel attire leaving a futuristic, high-tech Africa and flying to a primitive, post-apocalyptic France.When our pilot lands, he meets an attractive, scantily clad woman. She's a carnal creature who throws her body at the unsuspecting pilot, who in turn shyly rejects her advances. The woman then begins to communicate with the pilot using dance, scenes which anticipate Renoir's own "French Cancan" (1954).Though dismissed as a silly film, "Charleston Parade" abounds with interesting reversals. Renoir flips white and black stereotypes by assigning frenzied, tribal movements to whites (and a pet monkey no less) and dandyish behaviour (and sexual timidness) to the pilot. The pilot is himself played by Johnny Huggins, a black man, yet one who wears blackface paint, reversing the racist implications of minstrel shows. The film then ends with the pilot taking the primitive white girl back to Africa, where she will reintroduce white aboriginal dance to a people who have lost their own art-form by dint of distance from their ancestors. But while the film parodies white/black historical relations, it also points to common bonds. For Renoir, dance rather than film constitutes a shared language and perhaps also the chief art form from which cinema sprang.Incidentally, the 1920s saw the birth of new African-American communities in Paris. After WW1 ended, many African American GIs decided to stay in France, which lacked the widespread racism of the United States. It was also around this time that jazz was introduced to the French, as well as other aspects of black culture. Pretty soon African American musicians, artists and Harlem Renaissance writers began flocking to Paris – the city's Luminous Years – an exodus which WW2 promptly stopped.9/10 - Even minor Renoir is good Renoir.

JoeytheBrit This is an odd one and no mistake. In 2028, a black man (in black face and minstrel costume) pilots an orb to a savage land that once was Paris. There, he finds a native girl – a scantily-clad Catherine Hessling (Mrs Renoir) – who ties him to a post before dancing the Charleston. That's about all the story there is really. At one point, the girl draws a telephone which becomes real and uses it to a phone a group of bodiless angels (her hubby amongst them).Although the plot-free film quickly becomes rather tiresome because of its protracted dance sequences, it looks quite fascinating. Renoir repeatedly slows the motion while Hessling dances to turn what is essentially a frenetic jig into something altogether more sensuous, and the picture of a black-faced, top-hatted man dancing on a sunny, ruined street is one of those peculiar images that will forever be etched in my mind (even though I'll probably be asking if anyone knows which film it's from on the 'I Need to Know' board in a couple of years).The version I watched was completely silent, with no musical score at all. Some kind of music would have helped things along a bit, but I guess it would have been difficult to accompany all those slow-motion sequences effectively. Definitely worth a look for its curiosity value, but not really a film of much substance.

Adrian Sweeney I just found this as an extra on a DVD of 'Grand Illusion.' A surreal, silent, sci-fi short from 1927, it is the tale of a 21st-century African airman who journeys to post-apocalyptic Paris and discovers the sacred dance of the ancients, the Charleston. Hilarious, delightful, sexy, and utterly, utterly, soul-refreshingly bonkers, the maddest thing I have seen in ages.Now I am told my comment is not long enough, which is absurd. There is nothing more to add, except watch out for the Angel-heads. Also, lazy advertising men who are tempted to rip off the angel-heads for some moronic commercial should be informed that someone already did so years ago. I believe that is my ten lines now.

plaidpotato Shot in three days on a practically zero budget, using film stock left over from Nana, Jean Renoir made this strange curio just for fun. He never edited it. It was never released. He later gave the footage to the Cinémathèque Française, who pieced the film together.The story: it's the year 2028. An explorer from Central Africa (Johnny Huggins, a jazz dancer of the 1920s, who appears here in minstrel makeup; he actually was black) arrives in a post-apocalyptic Paris in a flying sphere. He encounters a scantily-clad wild girl and her monkey friend. The girl dances the Charleston to try to seduce him. He thinks she's threatening him and he runs away. She chases after him, dancing ever more aggressively and seductively. The explorer begins to watch, hesitantly, but curiously. The girl draws a telephone on the wall, which turns into a real telephone, and she calls some kind of disembodied human head with wings. Some other winged disembodied heads appear. The girl hands the phone to the explorer, and one of the heads speaks to him--apparently letting him know that the girl's OK. Then the explorer and the girl dance the Charleston together. The girl leaves with the explorer in his flying sphere, her tearful monkey friend waving goodbye.