Review of Viva Maria! (1965) by Jim H — 28 Mar 2011

Viva Maria (1965).

We've been told that famous French sex kitten Brigitte Bardot never made a film in America. However, that's really untrue. She made Viva Maria on location in Mexico and that's in America. This French made western comedy was directed by Louis Malle.

It's hard to believe that this was considered very racy and actually was one of the movies instrumental in starting the whole MPAA rating code for movies. It's hardly worth a PG-13 now. Although this movie was very popular around the world, (European Westerns were very popular at the time) but it wasn't so popular here in the States, and was even banned in some towns probably more for being anti-church and capitalist than anything sexual.

Maria I (Bardot) is a young girl in Ireland and Britain who helped her father make and explode bombs on the british. They later moved to Central America and slowly moved up to Mexico before soldiers killed her father. Maria walks into a circus and meets Maria II (Jeanne Moreau) who is a singer and dancer in the circus. The two of them team up and become an act.

Maria I accidentally tears some of her clothes and becomes the inventor of the strip tease. Maria II meets a young revolutionary, Flores (George Hamilton) who gets her involved in the Mexican revolution. Maria I is quick to help out. Together they incite the poor to fight a local dictator.