George Cukor – Zaza (1938)

Synopsis:
George Cukor’s seldom seen adaptation of David Belasco’s Zaza, this one features Claudette Colbert in the lead role of Zaza a famous singer who falls for a married man played by Herbert Marshall. This one gets little attention in the careers of Colbert and Cukor, but it’s a solid if uneven film, and certainly worth a peak.

Censorship

Zaza_1When shooting ended, Zaza got an absolute turndown by the Hays office and cuts were demanded. “It was so stupid,” Colbert said, “because Zaza had been a big success at the turn of the century, and all of a sudden the Hays Office thought it was risque.” But morals in 1939 were so rigid and the authority of the Hays office so absolute, that most of the film’s pristine shock had to be expunged. “These long despairing scenes were all cut,” Cukor later lamented.

Despite problems with the Hays office, Paramount’s top brass thought the film was one of studio’s best in years. With some confidence, the company traveled to a double preview, in Oakland and San Francisco. At the first night in Oakland, the preview began well and the film played beautifully for almost an hour, but then “all hell broke loose.”

In the story, Zaza goes to Paris, confirms her lover’s marriage without his knowledge, returns home and awaits his arrival. She hopes everything will be the same, but as he enters, preceded by a huge bouquet of white roses, the audience began to hiss. “Not Friday-night students-at-the-flicks hissing, but the real hissing,” Dmytryk recalled. Though one of the film’s best scenes unrolled on screen, no one heard it, as the audience’s angry reaction continued right through the bitter end.

Shocked by this turn of events, a few emergency cuts were made the next morning. They now hoped that a more cosmopolitan San Francisco audience would find the film acceptable. The viewers were indeed somewhat younger and more sophisticated, but the reaction was the same. Audiences simply could not forgive the hero for deceiving Zaza, making a “loose woman” out of her. Interestingly, there was evidence that watching the film alone, a person would accept its morality, but that same person when surrounded by others, joined in a “mob” reaction. Zaza demonstrated that “censorship never led, it merely reflected the common attitudes of the public.”

The return to Hollywood was a “nightmare of despair.” The ending was reshot, and further cuts were made. But each time the film was tested with an audience, whether in or outside big cities, the reaction was similar. There was little more Paramount could do. Colbert was shooting Midnight, when her brother came on the set with news that he had just seen Zaza’s final version. “They’ve cut and ruined it,” he reported. “I was very upset,” said the actress, “I couldn’t see the film for a very long time.” Cukor, too, was furious–the film he made would never be seen.

Zaza was quietly released on January 5, 1939, and just as quietly died at the box-office. Negative reaction from the press, led by Louella Parsons, did not help either. Nor did almost universal condemnation from local and state religious organizations.

The film was one of the few comercial flops in Cukor’s career.
— EmanuelLevy

Zaza (1938) -- George Cukor.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1h 25mn
Size: 	1.47 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	720x480 ~> 720x540
Aspect ratio:  	4:3
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	2 250 Kbps
BPP: 	0.272
Audio
#1:  	English 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 Kbps

https://nitro.download/view/F9539C4C8ADB3F5/Zaza_(1938)_–_George_Cukor.mkv

Language:English
Subtitles:None