It's difficult to grade this in the ordinary way because it is a curio rather than a conventional movie. Until anyone proves otherwise it was the first Sound film made in France and for a country that made some of the Finest early Sound films in the world during that first decade of Sound it is ironic that this one is ho-hum at best. What plot there is centres on a couple of American tourists who are 'slumming' in the kind of dive where her Chicago friends - also slumming - found Sophie (Ann Baxter) in The Razor's Edge; the kind of trap that featured 'apache' dancing and is now as obsolete as vaudeville. It's clear that the filmmakers wanted to 'show off' the new medium so music dominates, both orchestral and vocal. The standing joke is in the title 'chique' which roughly means harmless fun - initially the tourists are indignant when the male slaps the female around during the dance, the manager assures them that this is all in fun so when a REAL fight breaks out, severe enough to involve the gendarmes, the couple - in a new definition of innocents abroad - insist to the police that it's all a big joke. And that's it.
2 Reviews
The French jazz singer
dbdumonteil25 January 2008
Reportedly the first talkie made in France .It is a short ,with a running time not exceeding 27 minutes.
It's not much of a plot ,and it seems that music and songs are more important ,for the director was eager to make his audience hear the valses musettes (waltzes to the tune of accordions) and a song : they use the old word "Goualeuse " which has become obsolete today and which meant "chanteuse " (singer).When she began to sing in the streets of Paris ,Edith Piaf ,"la Môme " was a genuine Goualeuse;"Chiqué " was made at the same time.
"Goualeuse" was the nickname Eugène Sue gave to her "Mysteres de Paris" heroine Fleur-de-Marie and the places where "Chiqué " takes place recalls Sue' s "Tapis -Franc" , a sleazy cabaret which inspired Marcel Carné for "Les Enfants du Paradis" -Lacenaire and his lover April attack Baptiste there- The story revolves around a couple of naive Americans on a "pub crawl " ,drinking champagne and having a wild time.Every time something happens,they are told that's bluff (= "chiqué").But when hoodlums are coming to the place (Charles Vanel is the one actor who is still famous in France today:for the record he was in "le Salaire de la Peur " and "Les Diaboliques" ),and the cops are called in,the Americans keep on repeating :"that's bluff!"
It's not much of a plot ,and it seems that music and songs are more important ,for the director was eager to make his audience hear the valses musettes (waltzes to the tune of accordions) and a song : they use the old word "Goualeuse " which has become obsolete today and which meant "chanteuse " (singer).When she began to sing in the streets of Paris ,Edith Piaf ,"la Môme " was a genuine Goualeuse;"Chiqué " was made at the same time.
"Goualeuse" was the nickname Eugène Sue gave to her "Mysteres de Paris" heroine Fleur-de-Marie and the places where "Chiqué " takes place recalls Sue' s "Tapis -Franc" , a sleazy cabaret which inspired Marcel Carné for "Les Enfants du Paradis" -Lacenaire and his lover April attack Baptiste there- The story revolves around a couple of naive Americans on a "pub crawl " ,drinking champagne and having a wild time.Every time something happens,they are told that's bluff (= "chiqué").But when hoodlums are coming to the place (Charles Vanel is the one actor who is still famous in France today:for the record he was in "le Salaire de la Peur " and "Les Diaboliques" ),and the cops are called in,the Americans keep on repeating :"that's bluff!"
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