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Cet Sacrée Gamine
Naughty Girl
Mam'zelle Pigalle / That Naughty Girl
France 1956
produced by Albert Mazaleyrat, Georges Sénamaud for Les Films Lutétia, SLPF, Selb-Film, Sonodis
directed by Michel Boisrond
starring Brigitte Bardot, Jean Bretonnière, Francoise Fabian, Mischa Auer, Raymond Bussières, Michel Serrault, Jean Poiret, Jean Lefebvre, Darry Cowl, Bernard Lancret, Marcel Charvey, Lucien Raimbourg, Robert Rollis, Guy Henry, Mario David, Louis Viret, Madeleine Lambert, Roger Saget, Jacques Marin, Joé Davray, Vincent Hury, Gérard Rolland, Awazu, les Ballets Ho
idea by Jean Périne, screenplay by Roger Vadim, Michel Boisrond, dialogue by Roger Vadim, music by Henri Crolla, René Denoncin, Hubert Rostaing, choreographies by George Reich
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
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Nightclub owner Paul Latour (Bernard Lancret) finds himself under
suspicion of running a ounterfeit rign, so he has to skip town overnight
... but he has a daughter 17 year old Brigitte (Brigitte Bardot), whom she
has brought up in the belief that he's a saint and whom he has paid the
most expensive education in the most prestigious boarding school of the
country. And now he simply cannot let the police get hold of her, because
otherwise she would learn about him running a nightclub - so he asks his
most successful singer and choreographer Jean (Jean Bretonnière) to fetch
her from the boarding school under a pretense and bunk her up at his place
for a couple of days. Soon enough though, Jean finds himself on the run
from the police with the girl, and to obscure the truth about her father,
he makes up one silly pretense after the next, and she is naive enough to
believe all of them. It's after they have arrived safely home at his
place that problems really start though: Thing is, Jean is not single but
engaged to his psychiatrist (Francoise Fabian), while Brigitte has fallen
madly in love with him, and he more and more starts to care for her as
well. On top of that, Brigitte has the habit of burning apartments down
every time she tries to iron something. Oh, and don't forget Jean's butler
(Raymond Bussières), who doesn't really approve of his master's new
guest, mistaking her for a stripper. And have I even mentioned that the
actual head of the counterfeit ring is Latour's nightclub manager (Marcel
Charvey), who for some reason soon wants to get his hands on both Jean and
Brigitte? It all leads to a musical climax with barroom brawl during one
of Jean's performances, and to noone's real surprise, Paul Latour's name
is cleared at the end of the film, and Jean and Brigitte become a couple. Hollywood veteran Mischa Auer plays a pianist with a
predilection for smashing down doors using his head.
Light-hearted and light-footed musical comedy that's also a bit
air-headed though. Fact is, the film doesn't even attempt to go in-depth
at all, storywise, instead remains shallow as can be, cute as can be, and
despite of several raunchy details (raunchy from a 1950's point of view of
course) also harmless as can be - and that way, this particular film gives
away several distinct chances to become anything more than run-of-the-mill
superlight entertainment. That said, there is one real reason to watch
this film anyhow, and that's young red-haired Brigitte Bardot, who not
only looks amazingly hot in this film (and is shown in invariably sexy
outfits, some very brief), she also proves herself to be quite a dancer,
and shows a real talent for this kind of comedy, delivering by far the
best performance of the whole film. Now if you're not into harmless
1950's comedies and/or Brigitte Bardot, save yourself the trouble to watch
this, but if you are, you will find at least something to like about this
one.
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