I have not seen this film, and likely never will, but the three comments I have read here (occasioned on my part by a recent viewing of the Claudette Colbert 1938 version) need some thought and at least one correction. 1) Why should it be a 'stretch' for Swanson or any other actress to play a French woman, especially in a silent film?, 2) Is the second reviewer so removed from music that he does not know that "Plaisir d'amour" was one of the most famous love songs ever written (by Padre Martini, a sometime-priest)?, that it was well over 100 years old at the time of the play's setting (1898), and close to 200 years old when it was somewhat destroyed in order to become the Presley hit, "I Can't Help Falling in Love With You"?; also that it had been recorded by several dozen of the greatest (mostly) classical singers of the 20th century long before Elvis the Pelvis laid eyes upon it?, 3) While it is not inconceivable that Sarah Bernhardt might come to mind in connection with the character of Zaza, it should be noted that Zaza is a music hall star, while Bernhardt was arguably the most famous and most respected serious actress of her time, that time being the last third of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th (even though she always acted in French, even in America), and that her position then might be roughly analogous to Meryl Streep's today rather than to, say, Lady Gaga's! Also, in 1898 Bernhardt was hardly in her 'prime', being 54 years old (a lot older then than it would be now!) and a very famous star actress for 30 years. And, in 1898 I doubt that two respected French playwrights would have insulted their country's leading actress by writing a play about some of the less savory aspects of her life. Not to mention that in 1898 much of that information was hardly available to them or to the general public. I point out the unlikelihood of such an assumption rather than its absolute falsity, for we will never know for sure. The story was filmed 3 times before 1940, and twice during Bernhardt's lifetime, but outside the outstanding stage success Mrs. Leslie Carter achieved in the role in America, to this day the role is mostly associated with the American opera star, Geraldine Farrar, who achieved great success in it as her last new role at the Met, this in Leoncavallo's operatic version of the play. It does seem that, after Leoncavallo's death (1919) and Farrar's retirement from Opera (1922), ZAZA lost considerable ground. In fact, the only time most of us have heard of it since then was when Claudette Colbert filmed it in 1938 (and she was apparently a last-minute replacement for Isa Miranda, thus giving it a star imprimatur it would not otherwise have enjoyed), and in very occasional operatic revivals since the end of the Second World War.
