I recall seeing that years ago on a cable channel (Blu Fer U night or some such): I remember Jane Fonda but not a damn thing about the plot. Funny how that goes.
Here's what I've written about 'Barbarella.' What about Jenny Agutter in 'Logan's Run.'
‘Barbarella’, released almost forty years ago in December 1967, is a camp classic if ever there was one. Statuesque women in Perspex bras, comic strip adventures on other worlds, fantastic landscapes, bizarre machines which cause death by ecstasy, dotty dialogue and a Candide-like heroine.
‘Barbarella’ is a film Jane Fonda may feel is merely a light-hearted romp in contrast to the serious films she is proud of – but it’s one she shouldn’t be ashamed of.
As strange as it may seem, at one time Jane felt uncomfortable about her body – at least when it came to exposing it, which was inevitable when hubby Roger Vadim directed her.
She had a lean, coltish figure, didn’t wear a brassiere and her breasts weren’t the pneumatic type favoured in some quarters. When she began filming ‘Any Wednesday’, studio head Jack Warner said he didn’t like the size of her breasts and ordered her to wear a bra.
She had observed, “When I first became an actress, I was told that I didn’t look right. That I wasn’t right. I had to dye my hair blonde. I had to wear falsies, my lips were repainted. That all helps to make your mind alienate you from what you are, not only inside, but outside.”
Jane decided to leave America for Europe and moved to France to appear in the film ‘Les Felines.’ That was when she was labelled ‘La BB Americaine’ by the French press.
The label would become more relevant when she began to be moulded by Bardot’s former husband Vadim, who said, “When she left Hollywood it was because she wanted to make a name on her own. She was a little starlet, the daughter of Henry Fonda. Some journalists compared her with Brigitte Bardot and she hated it. She was right to hate it. She came to France to make a name of her own. That was very courageous and typical of Jane.”
When she was tagged the American Bardot, Jane remarked, “I’ve a lot of respect for Brigitte Bardot, but I don’t think I’m like her at all, and in my case, I prefer being myself.”
Vadim had wanted her to star in a remake of ‘La Ronde’, a classic French film of 1954. During the making of the movie she moved into his flat with him.
The film did not create much of a sensation in France. Jane had to deny rumours that she acted in the nude in the film. “I am supposedly nude in bed,” she said, “but I wear a bra and panties. There were ninety-five people on the set.”
The reaction in America where it was called ‘Circle of Love’, created controversy because of an eight-storey billboard erected at the DeMille Theatre on 47th Street which showed Jane totally nude. She filed a $3 million lawsuit and her bare derriere was hastily covered over by a sheet of canvas and a spokesman for the theatre commented, “We are not in the pornography business.” The box office boomed, the billboard was taken down and Jane dropped her suit.
Their next project together was ‘La Curee’, based on an Emile Zola novel.
In the film, called ‘The Game is Over’ in English, there was a ten-second scene in a Turkish bath in which Jane was naked. At the time it was quite daring for a major actress to reveal her breasts on film. The set had to be cleared, but a photographer was hidden in the sound stage rafters and his photographs appeared in Playboy magazine. She sued, but she lost the case.
The next film was their famous collaboration, ‘Barbarella.’
Vadim was pleased that she agreed to appear as Barbarella and said, “One of the reasons I was pleased she did it was because she was not very secure as far as her looks were concerned. She didn’t feel that she was in any way sexy. She was insecure about her body and her face. People may not believe that, but it’s true. Barbarella gave her a certain sense of confidence.”
An intriguing opening scene provided the first striptease in space as the captivating space agent Barbarella is first seen covered from head to toe in a space suit which she slowly peels off while floating weightless. Although she appeared completely nude, she only agreed to do so with the proviso that portions of her private anatomy would be covered by the title credits. She wasn’t satisfied with the result and made him refilm the scene.
The assistant make-up man on the film began to boast widely of caressing Jane’s breasts, bottom and inside thighs as he touched up her body with paint and powder. His wife bought a gun and threatened to kill him. He retreated from the picture – and lived!
Jane was to say, “The over-emphasis on identifying me with sex is pretty silly. I’m no sex siren just because I believe in approaching sex and the human body with honesty. I think the whole obsession with sex and the size of a girl’s breasts is a perversion.”
The character was based on a popular French comic strip by Jean-Claude Forest, which first surfaced in book form in 1964, and Forest based his blonde-haired, free-loving creation on Brigitte Bardot. He collaborated on the script with Terry Southern, who was the author of the sexy American best-seller ‘Candy.’
Jane was hoping that her father would appear in the role of President of Earth. At first Henry was interested, then commented, “Will I have to take all my clothes off?” before declining. The part went to Claude Dauphin.
John Phillip Law, who had appeared with Jane in ‘Hurry Sundown’ was cast as the blind angel Pygor, Marcel Marceau appeared as Professor Ping, Milo O’ Shea as Duran Duran (yes, this is where the pop group found its name), Anita Pallenberg as the Black Queen and David Hemmings as the revolutionary, Dildano.
‘Barbarella’ is a space-age version of ‘The Perils of Pauline.’ In one scene she is to be attacked by two thousand wrens that peck her clothes to tatters. The birds wouldn’t co-operate, even when Vadim put birdseed in Jane’s costume. Eventually they succeeded in filming the scene using lovebirds – but Jane had been under such a strain that she was hospitalised for three days with hypertension and nausea.
In another scene she is attacked by a horde of vicious dolls with metal teeth, who seek to rip her apart. Duran Duran locks her in a machine of ultimate ecstasy that kills its victims with pleasure – but Barbarella absorbs as much ecstasy as it can give and the machine eventually blows a gasket!
Erotic costumes and its irreverence and sexiness helped to make ‘Barbarella’ a box office success.
Vadim commented, “It looks more like a Brigitte Bardot type movie, it is true. Sex is there, but not graphic sex. It is fun. People have forgotten completely that Jane became Jane Fonda through some other movies that helped her before ‘Barbarella.’ But all people remember is ‘Barbarella’ because ‘Barbarella’ looks more like a Bardot movie in a certain way. But it was just one of the movies that Jane could do.”
American critic Pauline Kael was to write, “Jane Fonda, having sex on the wilted feathers and rough scroungy furs of ‘Barbarella’ is more charming and fresh and bouncy than ever – the American girl triumphing by her innocence over a lewd comic strip world of the future.”
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