Carmen Miranda Turns 100

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojo3I59Gn6c[/youtube]

Carmen Miranda — known as the "Brazilian Bombshell" in the US; as A Pequena Notável (either "The Notable Gal" or "The Notable Little One," I'm not sure) in Brazil — would have turned 100 today.

In the clip above, the Portuguese-born, (as Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha, in Marco de Canavezes) Brazilian-raised (in Rio de Janeiro) entertainer can be seen performing, along with the Bando da Lua (Band of the Moon), what may well be her most popular song — Dorival Caymmi's "O Que É Que a Baiana Tem" ("What Does the Bahiana Have?") — in the 1939 Brazilian musical comedy Banana-da-Terra, directed by Ruy Costa. (According to the youtube poster, the original routine was shorter; the one above has been reedited. That probably explains the poor lip-synching midway through the clip.)

Shot in 1938, two years before Miranda made her Hollywood debut, "O Que É Que a Baiana Tem," is reportedly Banana-da-Terra's only surviving sequence. It also marks the first time Miranda wore her beringed, bejeweled, bedazzling Bahiana outfit — though (at least some of) Banana-da-Terra is set in Rio (as can be attested by the skyline at the beginning of the clip).

Written by João de Barro and Mário Lago, Banana-da-Terra follows the Queen of Bananolândia (Dircinha Batista), as she tries to help her island-country get rid of its excess banana production by exporting the fruit to (of all places) Brazil, where apparently people eat more bananas than they produce. Also in the cast were Oscarito, who might be described as a sort of Brazilian Totó or Cantinflas or Bob Hope, Linda Batista (Dircinha's sister), and Aloysio de Oliveira.

I'd never seen "O Que É Que a Baiana Tem" until a few minutes ago, but it's already my favorite Carmen Miranda number. Her "The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat" from The Gang's All Here (1943) may be more extravagant, while her other show-stoppers in Twentieth Century Fox productions of the early 1940s may have been all impeccably produced — and in color — but it's the very simplicity of the "O Que É Que a Baiana Tem" number, shot in plain, old black and white, now extant in a faded, scratchy print, that I find, despite (or perhaps because of) its zesty rhythms, immensely moving.

Clip posted by DoniSacramento