Ever wonder why the caged bird sings?

The music editor caught a film the other day called Same Old Song directed by Alain Resnais, from a play by the great writing team of Jean-Pierre Bacri and Agnes Jaoui. It was a good flick, a fairly ordinary tale of the romantic entanglements of upwardly mobile Parisians with one extraordinary twist: the dialogue is often punctuated with bursts of song. Not original songs like a musical, but pop songs lip-synced by the actors. Strange in that (like Stewie on Family Guy) you can never tell if the other characters understand the song being sung--it seems like sometimes they do and sometimes they don't--but it definitely livens up the atmosphere.

Anyway, the songs were all French pop songs that I didn't know. But I did recognize some Charles Aznavour, Edith Piaf and Josephine Baker, it put the music editor in an old timey mood. Here's the great Josephine belting out a number from the 1934 film Zouzou. (I haven't seen the film so I'm not sure if this is the only musical number in the film or if this is a proper musical, I look forward to getting to the bottom of this mystery) Her creative bikini top almost makes this a NSFW item but I don't think anyone will be emotionally scarred by this. Man, she's got some pipes on her and the set and costume designs are curious.

Josephine Baker -- 'Haiti' (from the film Zouzou)