A Few Words About A few words about...™ Barbarella -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Mark Oates]

Timothy Dalton went on to shoot his first Bond film, The Living Daylights, straight after making this movie.

Hit the ground running, as I recall. I have a vague recollection of it nearly knackering his chance to be 007. If memory serves, he couldn't be released from BS to prepare for TLD and it was literally a case of stepping off the plane and into the tux.
EDIT: Got it now. Quick trawl of IMDb trivia - Timbo had been offered the role of 007 but couldn't get out of the Brenda Starr contract, so the role was offered to Pierce Brosnan. The delay caused by the Remington Steele people screwing Brosnan over meant that Timbo could complete Brenda Starr and take up the Walther. I believe it was still a close run thing.

 

[SilverWook]

Haven't seen "CQ" mentioned in the thread yet. A fun movie I never would have discovered had I not become a fan of Diabolik. John Phillip Law even has a small role in it.

 

[JoeStemme]

When one thinks of comic book adaptations these days, it's almost always in relation to superhero flicks. Not so with this camp cult film based on Jean-Claude Forest's European erotic illustrated books. This film version fuses Forest's imagination with the pop art of the era. The film had a long run on the revival circuit in no small part because it promised some nudity along with it's sci-fi; this being an era before the movie could be shown unbutchered on broadcast TV.

Chief among those interests was the legendary striptease under the opening credits for one Miss Jane Fonda, the then wife of Director Roger Vadim - the man who had made Brigitte Bardot a legend. The motley cast includes Ugo Tognazzi, John Philip Law, Marcel Marceau (in a chatty role), Anita Pallenberg and Milo O'Shea as Durand-Durand (the latter inspired the name of the famous New Wave band a decade later). Fonda certainly looks the part, but, her affected manner of playing up the innocence of her libertine space mistress role makes much of her performance kind of flat.

Terry Southern's original script was re-written by a host of writers including Vadim himself. There are some amusing jokes and gags along the way and the fashions, sets and visuals give it a certain kitschy glamour. Charles Fox and Bob Crewe's music propel it on a cloud of Euro lounge. Vadim was never a great dramatist, but, he did have a certain eye (and not just for the ladies). Producer Dino De Laurentiis did give it a good budget and most of that went to the Production Design and physical effects (as opposed to optical ones). It's big and colorful if a bit stagy and unwieldy at the same time. They certainly don't make 'em quite like this any more, and our modern bluenoses would turn away if it ever got rebooted (it's been “in the works” for years). Best to leave it as a tongue in cheek document of its time.

 

[usrunnr]

What is the run time of the unedited version? There are at least two versions
for sale on Amazon. One is the import "Barbarella Queen of the Universe"
and one is Paramounts "Barbarella"

 

[Dick]

Even in the existing cut, Logan's Run has a full-on orgy in the middle of the film, as well as Jenny Agutter's on-camera disrobing. There is zero chance that movie would get a PG if rated today, unless those two scenes were cut.
As for Barbarella, even if the amount of actual nudity is low, the film is nothing but a string of lewd sex gags. Her spaceship is shaped like a sex toy, ferchrissakes. I don't consider myself a prude (and I'm not even a parent), but I would not consider this movie appropriate for children, parental guidance or not.

Try looking at BARBARELLA as a kind of precursor to FLESH GORDON. They are both parodies, and are both provocative with their sex scenes.

 

[Dick]

You're forgetting a lot of nudity. Agutter shows way more than "a vague profile of a boob"...

But not as much as she did at age 14 in WALKABOUT, which had a PG rating ("GP" at the time) and which is in no way construed to be porn or exploitation.

 

[JoeStemme]

Try looking at BARBARELLA as a kind of precursor to FLESH GORDON. They are both parodies, and are both provocative with their sex scenes.

BARBARELLA is a definite influence on FLASH GORDON - another Dino D spoofy sci-fi flick with oversized sets and garish visuals